Courtyard blocks of homes around a planted street. Concept rendering.
Now City

Now City Homes

Aggregate massive demand for high quality factory built multi-family buildings by driving cost below $200/sq ft with technology and design.

November 2026

The West Coast is 238,000 homes a year short, because apartments cost too much to build.

$350a square foot for a 6-story Portland building [1].
58,400approved San Francisco homes nobody can afford to start [2].
ClosedKaterra, Veev, Factory_OS: housing factories fail on uneven orders [3][4][5].
2

One system: aggregate the demand, then design everything around it from first principles.

A kit of standard frame parts. Concept rendering.

AI in every step

From product development to sales, logistics, construction and operations.

Robots on a factory line. Concept rendering.

Robots off and on site

Robotic framing lines [6]; robotic layout and lifting on site.

Autonomous shuttles on a street. Concept rendering.

Autonomous electric delivery

Rail and trucks along I-5; heavy autonomous trucks testing in California, with a safety driver [7].

3

TAM $95B, SAM $15.4B, SOM $881M a year.

$95B
TAM: 391,000 homes a yearstate targets, all housing types, at $350 a square foot [8][9][10]
$15.4B
SAM: 63,000 homes a yearapartments and townhomes permitted on I-5 and CA-99 [11][12]
$881M
SOM: 6,341 homes a year10% of SAM at $200, from year 8

Priced on the Portland prototype home, 694 square feet, smaller than average. SAM uses 2025, a cycle low.

4

$350 to $200 a square foot: evidence supports the first $50; the system design has to deliver the rest.

Today, Portland 6-story [1]
$350
Factory production on one catalog [13]
−$50
Robots in the plant and on site
−$35
One contract, no stacked markups
−$35
Ten-year volume buying
−$20
Weeks on site: less site overhead
−$10
Complete building, delivered
$200

Our estimates. Factory production cuts hard cost 10 to 25% with steady orders [13]. Nobody builds a West Coast mid-rise for $200 today; the pilot measures it.

5

A supply network that grows with the orders, not a fixed set of factories.

Wall panels on a line. Concept rendering.

Components

Mills and makers near ports, on ten-year volume

Robotic arms in a hall. Concept rendering.

Robotic hubs

On rail lines, on surplus, mall and office land

Electric railway track being laid in the Willamette Valley, early 1900s.

Autonomous freight

Rail and electric trucks on corridors already built

Panels assembled in a hall. Concept rendering.

Robotic assembly

Buildings go up in weeks

Concept renderings; historic photograph of the Willamette Valley electric line.

6

One frame, four kinds of home, made from the same parts.

A mid-rise block. Concept rendering.
The Block: 4 to 6 stories, one stair
Row houses. Concept rendering.
Row houses with a second home
A taller building. Concept rendering.
A taller building for transit stops

California buildings use two stairs until the state allows one.

7

The Now City stack adds value beyond the building itself.

A riverfront district. Concept rendering.
  • Land: rail, surplus, mall and office sites assembled into districts
  • Underwriting: Upside Explorer finds what makes each project pencil
  • Time: less construction interest, earlier rent
  • Operations: shared systems; each building improves the next

Not counted in the financials.

8

$881.2M a year from year 8. Peak cash $45.7M, break-even year 7.

-$8M$214M$436M$659M$881MYear 1Year 2Year 3Year 4Year 5Year 6Year 7Year 8Year 9Year 10
RevenueOperating profit$62.5M operating profit a year at full scale

Our assumptions: $200 a square foot, 12% margin, 10% of SAM by year 8. Low case (8% margin, 5% share): $77.8M peak, no break-even in ten years.

9

Ten-year buyer commitments finance the network.

240,000homes of capacity on California transit land [14]
15,400homes in six West Coast mall plans [15]
58,400stalled approved homes, San Francisco [2]
2029first homes in our own first district

Letters of intent, then framework agreements with deposits.

10

US factories failed on uneven orders. Sweden's catalog, on multi-year orders, built about 10,000 apartments.

KaterraDesign, factories and contracting at onceBankrupt 2021 [3]
Factory_OSModules, CaliforniaClosed 2026 [5]
KombohusPublic buyers, one catalogAbout 9,500 to 11,000 apartments [16]
11

Two co-founders, roughly equal owners, and two senior advisors.

Erik Gillberg, CEO

Product and go-to-market. 30 years in property operations, 20 in technology.

Ritchie Ju, COO

Sales. Architecture and urban design, Carnegie Mellon and Columbia.

Neal Payton and Michael H. Shuman

Urban design at Torti Gallas; local economies and capital.

First hires

Supply chain, engineering, robotics, AI, sales.

12

$7.2M for year 1, $45.7M to break-even, and letters of intent.

$7.2MYear 1: catalog, platform, order book.
200 homesYear 2 pilot at a measured cost; first deposits.
6,341 a yearFrom year 8, growing with orders.
13

Sources

  1. BAE Urban Economics for the City of Portland, Inclusionary Housing Calibration Findings, July 2023. https://www.sightline.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Portland-Inclusionary-Housing-Revised-Calibration-Findings-7-7-2023-1.pdf
  2. San Francisco Planning, Housing Production Development Pipeline, 2026 Q2. https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/documents/reports/Housing_Production_Development_Pipeline-2026Q2.pdf
  3. ProBuilder, 2021, on Katerra's bankruptcy and the sale of its Tracy plant. https://probuilder.com/modular-builder-vbc-verge-25-million-buy-katerra-assets
  4. TechCrunch, "Prefab home builder Veev reportedly shutting down", November 2023. https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/27/prefab-home-builder-veev-reportedly-shutting-down-after-reaching-unicorn-status-last-year
  5. Vallejo Sun, February 2026, and Offsite Innovators, "Farewell to Harbinger", September 2026, on the closure of Factory_OS (renamed Harbinger). https://offsiteinnovators.com/farewell-to-harbinger-a-factory-that-proved-modular-could-build-at-scale/
  6. US Department of Energy, "Transformative Efficiency and Automation in Modular Homes" (GTI Energy with Dvele, Loma Linda, California), updated March 2025. https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/transformative-efficiency-and-automation-modular-homes-teamh
  7. Automotive World, "California grants Kodiak AI autonomous trucking permit", August 2026. https://www.automotiveworld.com/news/california-grants-kodiak-ai-autonomous-trucking-permit/
  8. California HCD, Statewide Housing Plan (2022): about 2.5 million homes over the sixth housing cycle, as reported by CalMatters, August 2026. https://calmatters.org/housing/2026/08/california-rhna-housing-affordable-progress/
  9. Washington Department of Commerce, "Washington state will need more than 1 million homes in next 20 years", March 2023. https://www.commerce.wa.gov/washington-state-will-need-more-than-1-million-homes-in-next-20-years/
  10. Oregon Office of Economic Analysis, Oregon Housing Needs Analysis 2026 production targets, December 2025. https://www.oregon.gov/das/oea/Documents/OHNA-2026-Results-Report.pdf
  11. US Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey, state annual files 2019 to 2025 and January to September 2026. https://www.census.gov/construction/bps/
  12. US Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey, metro (CBSA) annual files 2024 and 2025. https://www2.census.gov/econ/bps/CBSA%20(beginning%20Jan%202024)/
  13. Terner Center, testimony to the California Assembly Select Committee on Housing Construction Innovation, January 6, 2026. https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/blog/testimony-to-the-select-committee-on-housing-construction-innovation/
  14. Enterprise Community Partners, "Assessing the Potential of Transit Agency-Owned Land for Housing Development in California", March 2026. https://enterprisecommunity.org/sites/default/files/2026-03/Enterprise-Transit-Agency-Land-Use-Report.pdf
  15. Mall redevelopment plans: Stonestown (CBS News SF, July 2024), The Rise at Vallco (SV@Home, February 2026), Westminster (CoStar), Lloyd Center (Axios Portland, February 2026), Northgate (The Urbanist, 2024), Tanforan (CEQAnet SCH 2023120409). https://cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/sf-stonestown-galleria-3500-new-homes-final-approval-board-of-supervisors
  16. Sveriges Allmännytta, "Public housing: Sweden's Kombohus"; Unihouse on the 2020 six-year framework. https://sverigesallmannytta.se/in-english/public-housing-swedens-kombohus
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Business plan