This Founder Just Landed Funding For A Second Go At The Same Problem: Affordable Custom Home Design

Affordable custom home design gets a second shot as founder Nick Donahue secures fresh funding for a leaner, smarter reboot.
Matilda
This Founder Just Landed Funding For A Second Go At The Same Problem: Affordable Custom Home Design
Affordable Custom Home Design Is Back—With a Smarter Playbook Can you really build a custom home without blowing your budget—or your sanity? That’s the question driving Nick Donahue’s return to the housing innovation scene in late 2025. After shuttering his first startup, Atmos, amid rising interest rates and operational headaches, Donahue has quietly raised new funding to relaunch his mission: making affordable custom home design accessible to more Americans. This time, he’s betting that fewer humans and smarter software can finally crack the code. Credit: Drafted From Builder Kid to Disruptor Donahue wasn’t just another tech founder with a housing itch. Growing up, dinner-table conversations revolved around blueprints, zoning laws, and the frustrating gap between what homebuyers wanted and what developers were willing to build. His father constructed homes for major national builders; his mother sold materials to big-box developers across the East Coast. That insider view planted a seed…