All wanted to bring all the thiblets and his wife Simi to build a dream house in Portugal about five years ago, where both of them live now.
But what he faced instead was a broken system. “The delay of fourteen months, 20% budget overran, and managing endless stress more than 10 subcontinent,” Thibault recalled. He bought land in December 2020, obtained construction license in early 2022, and began construction that year. “It was about to end in February 2024,” he said. But this is May 2025, and the house is still not done.
“We realized,” he continued, “if we are struggling with it, there are millions.”
So Thibault, the founder and entrepreneur of a serial, and SIMI, also launched a advisor and a founder, launched LighthossA company that touts landlords and property developers to help build houses in a more efficient and durable manner. This deal with the need for a pressure in both the US and European markets: the ability to build cheap homes.
Lithaus, which was launched earlier last year, calls itself “Uber of Building”, saying with Thibault that the company just wants to add all the fragmented parts of the house-building process. It matches landlords and property developers with other professionals such as construction companies, architects, contractors and interior designers. The company allows users to track costs, coordinate the program with rented workers, and to track the progress of the building in real time.
“As a Go-to-Market Strategy, we decided to focus on modular construction, which allowed us to create 30% cheaper, 40% faster and 60% more continuous,” said Thibault said, “90% less waste and 50% lower Co2 emissions than traditional construction.
According to the pitchbook, other people of modular construction space include US-based guinosco modular and flumorfelt and India-based Shellel Prefab.
Litehaus has at least one American manufacturing company in its network as it carries forward its expansion in the country. Right now, it focuses on becoming “Europe’s fastest growing construction technique startup”, said Thibault said.
In addition, European construction industry can use more innovation. Investors in the US put billions of dollars in growing construction technology, and, as usual, is very much space to catch for the European technology industry.
Investors here and across the pond are clearly agreed. Last week, Lighthoss announced a € 1.46 million east-sed round of Portugal’s largest private equity funds, UK cornestone VC and Explorer Fund. Claster Group, a luxembourg family office, and Angel Investor Pascal Levi, who is a venture partner at Long Journey Ventures in the US, also participated in the round.
Rodney Appia, a managing partner of the cornerstone VC, said, “The lack of housing across Europe has triggered a crisis, increasing the cost of living as a home ownership.” “When I first met Thibault and SIMI, I was killed with their compelling point of view: building a house as buying a house, catalyzing the construction industry to bring more transparency, stability, quality and confidence for the process.”
Thibault called the wealth raising journey “intense”. He said that he and SIMI had known their major investors for years through mutual friends. Thibault, who is from France, is the founder of an immersive gaming studio in Portugal, but has also invested in many companies, both as an Angel investor and in France and New York respectively, firms 50 partners in France and New York through their work in 50 partners and origin. Earlier, he worked in a French mining company and Green Tech.
Meanwhile, Simi was born in Nigeria and grew up in London. He served as a contemporary art gallery, a wellness brand for colored women, and a consultant and strategist for various firms on law and Africa.
“I always wanted to build businesses that change people’s lives,” Simi told Tekkachch. “Providing cheap houses on the scale is not just a market opportunity – this is one of the most meaningful methods that we can create deep, permanent effects.”
He is now in charge of marketing, communication and design in Lighthaus; Her husband handles the thibolt, money raising, business development and technology.
“When this time came to lift, we went quickly with the partners who already knew us and shared our vision from the first day,” said Thibault. He said that fresh capital would be used to help the company to score and hire more talent in engineering, product, marketing and operation.
It is quite fun that Thibault and Simi manufactured a company, picked up more than a million euros, and had two children, before their home, a process that they started working four years ago, finally ended.
“We are actually moving forward in the next month,” said Thibault. “We move forward after a delay of 14 months in the following month. This is the pain point we are trying to solve for millions of people.”
This story was updated to reflect who co-existed the round.
