52% of Americans want to live in a walkable neighborhood. But only 8% do.
In fact, most Americans live in places where getting around via private car is the only option.
At Culdesac, we’re building a new option.
One where the fastest and safest way to get around is to walk, roll, bike, or scoot. One where it feels like living in a park, not a sea of asphalt. One where community interaction is welcomed and designed for. One where people are prioritized over private vehicles.
At Culdesac, our mission is to build cities for people, not cars.
And with record increases in congestion, loneliness, traffic fatalities, and global warming, building a new option for the way we live has never been more important.
That’s why we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve raised a $30M Series A led by Khosla Ventures, with Founders Fund, LENx (Lennar's venture investing arm), Byers Capital, Zigg Capital, and Initialized Capital investing as well. This capital will help us scale our team, raise our first $2B of real estate capital, and help us get one step closer to our mission of building the first car-free city in the US.
We’re also pleased to announce that John Zimmer, Co-Founder & President of Lyft, and Megan Meyer Toolson, Chief Customer Officer of Opendoor, have joined our board.
What we’ve been up to
Over the past few years, we’ve been laying the groundwork for a new way to live in the US. Our first project, Culdesac Tempe, opens in a few months. It’s a 1,000 person neighborhood that is the 1st car-free community built from scratch in the US. Fifty-five percent of the neighborhood is open space, and the community is home to a corner market, coffee shop, restaurant, bike shop, and coworking space. We’ve raised over $200M in real estate capital to make it happen.
We’ve designed the space around modern mobility, because how we move determines how we live, with designated e-bike garages, over 1,000 bike racks, on-site EV carshare, and integrated scooter parking and rideshare pick-up zones. In fact, all residents get $3,000/year in mobility benefits through a one-of-a-kind partnership with Lyft, Bird, Envoy, and Arizona Valley Metro. We estimate that residents of Culdesac Tempe will emit 50% less transportation-related CO₂ emissions than their neighbors.
We’ve started the next set of Culdesac neighborhoods, each 3 times bigger than Culdesac Tempe. These communities are located in growing cities across the country, and will allow thousands of people to have a new option of how to live.
We’ve grown our team to 30, and have converted 4 parking lots (and counting!) to parks around our Tempe headquarters.
What’s next
We’re growing! We’re hiring an interdisciplinary team of software engineers, urban designers, passionate generalists, and real estate professionals to scale Culdesac to new locations. We’re also preparing to raise our next round of real estate capital, which will be used to finance our future communities.
Our team blends technology, real estate, and culture to reimagine our daily lives and build the city we want to live in. If you join us, you would work with a former Nobu chef, an urbanist with 17 million TikTok views (and counting), and the owner of the largest personal e-bike fleet in the world. Your days would be engaging, intense, and potentially end in salsa dancing lessons or a sunset e-bike ride to dinner.
If you’re passionate about creating a new option for the way we live, come join our team.
Let’s build the future together.
"2020 Community and Transportation Preference Survey.” NAR, Aug. 2020.
