Neighborly Raises Series A

Today we’re thrilled to announce that Neighborly raised a $25 million Series A round to further our mission of modernizing public finance. The investment was led by Joe Lonsdale at 8VC, Laurene Powell Jobs at Emerson Collective, with follow-on participation from Ashton Kutcher at Sound Ventures, Maven Ventures, Bee Partners, and Stanford University. We welcome newcomers Govtech Fund, Abstract.vc, and Fintech Collective.

Neighborly modernizes access to public finance. We connect borrowing communities with investors of every type, allowing cities to more easily issue debt and allowing community members to invest directly in their communities.

Now is the time to modernize public finance. Our nation faces three converging forces:

1. Increasing borrowing costs: As the Federal Reserve begins hiking interest rates, communities will face higher borrowing costs, making it more expensive to finance public projects.
2. Significantly reduced federal funding: This comes at a time when the current administration is getting ready to roll out a number of spending cuts that will drastically reduce the amount of funding available to the nation’s communities.
3. Growing public project backlogs: With an ever-growing backlog of projects, communities will have to make painful tradeoffs between vital public works.

These costly choices mean potentially sacrificing parks, art programs, critical infrastructure projects, and other civic amenities that make up the backbone of our nation’s communities. Things once taken for granted in American life now seem to disintegrate at quickening pace.

This year has already been an inflection point for public finance. Since the start of the year Neighborly has financed nearly $25 million for communities, from California to Massachusetts, for public projects including bike lanes, building renovations, energy efficiency upgrades, and conservation.