Higharc’s $53M Series B: earning national coverage

I wanted to reach C-suite leaders across venture capital and construction, with coverage that extended beyond the construction trade press. Forbes was my first choice because its national reputation and business readership aligned with that audience.

Funding announcements compete for reporters’ attention, so I built the pitch around a broader construction-tech story. Amid a nationwide housing shortage, Higharc was helping builders reduce the time, cost, and complexity of bringing homes to market. My PR plan positioned the round as an endorsement from across construction, manufacturing, and distribution, reflecting the value of connecting builders, suppliers, manufacturers, and buyers.

That angle fit Amy Feldman’s manufacturing and technology coverage and gave her readers a concrete reason to care about the funding. We pitched several outlets, but prioritized Forbes and offered Amy exclusive announcement coverage to strengthen the pitch.

The strongest evidence of Higharc’s progress since Series A came from customers using the product. In an industry often slow to adopt new technology, securing a builder willing to speak on the record was central to the story.

I drew on the trust Higharc had built with its customers to bring Buffington Homes into the coverage. Marissa Kaiser’s perspective gave readers a firsthand account of the software’s impact: Buffington had reduced the time to bring a new housing community to market from 120 days to 30 days. Its participation showed the depth of those relationships and gave the founder and investor perspectives concrete support.

I also wrote the interview brief for Spark Capital’s Alex Finkelstein, preparing him to discuss the investment and setting clear boundaries around revenue disclosure and competitor references.

I planned embargoed outreach from February 1, ahead of the Forbes exclusive scheduled for February 15 at 7 a.m. The rollout connected that media lead-in with newsroom, social, customer email, and internal communications, supported by planned amplification from investors and partners.

My plan targeted coverage in one tier-one national outlet and at least three industry outlets, plus a launch-week website traffic target of 1,000+.

Amy Feldman’s Forbes feature published on February 15, 2024, meeting the national coverage goal. The broader launch earned 50+ press hits across Forbes, Fortune, Axios, Fast Company, BUILDER Mag, and other trade press.

Those publications represented an estimated 400M unique monthly views, a measure of the outlets’ monthly audiences rather than actual readership of the coverage.

Within two weeks, the Series B launch contributed to a 2x increase in inbound activity, generating 78 inbound requests. These results reflect the full launch campaign.