Technology & AI

Baillie Gifford and funds managed by BlackRock co-led a $200 million Series D for ICON, which says the money will start production of Titan, its multi-story robotic printing system, in Austin, Texas.

The largest U.S. homebuilder by volume has signed a multi-year agreement giving it access to Promise Robotics’ Factory-as-a-Service platform for more than 1,250 homes, the companies said Oct. 13.

Optimal Blue acquired Denver-based borrower engagement platform Usherpa and, the same day, connected its direct lock function to Fannie Mae’s PE – Whole Loan platform. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The Loan Officer Productivity Suite, announced Oct. 12, puts six AI features inside nCino’s mortgage point of sale, from a guideline-answering assistant to automated pre-approvals and disclosures. Two of the six were released earlier this year.

PLACE has agreed to buy Ardley, whose AI reads a lender’s servicing portfolio and pushes pre-structured loan offers to existing borrowers. Terms were not disclosed. It is PLACE’s second mortgage-technology purchase since Sept. 24.

Vesta said on Oct. 8 it raised $30 million led by Conversion Capital, with strategic money from Pennymac, New American Funding, Citi Ventures, nbkc bank, First American and FirstKey Mortgage. The company says AI agents and automated workflows now handle about 40% of tasks on its loan origination platform.

Fair Isaac disclosed in an Oct. 6 SEC filing that it will cut about 15% of positions across the company, taking $27 million in severance charges, even as scores revenue grew more than 40% year over year.

Realtor.com added RealAssist AI to Realtor.com+ on Oct. 6, automating client setup, summarizing daily client activity and drafting actions agents approve. The platform is live in 21 markets serving more than 192,000 agents.

Valon Technologies raised $150 million in Series D funding at a $2.3 billion valuation, doubling its prior valuation, with Ribbit Capital joining and Andreessen Horowitz returning. The company says one in six outstanding U.S. mortgages is under contract to run on its ValonOS servicing platform.

Yardi says the new platform embeds AI in modules clients already run, opens live Yardi data to outside AI assistants starting with Claude, and adds agents for invoice approvals, lease audits and month-end close.

The justices denied certiorari in Zillow Group v. Jaeger on the first day of the new term, ending the company’s effort to undo a class certified over its 2021 statements about Zillow Offers pricing.

AWS chief executive Matt Garman pledged more than $1 billion over five years for the counties hosting Amazon’s data centers, citing more than 100 local moratoriums under consideration across the country.

CertifID acquired Austin-based Closinglock on Oct. 1, combining wire-fraud prevention with escrow payments across more than 3,000 title companies. Terms were not disclosed.

Construction managers and building inspectors are the only two of 47 construction occupations BLS rates as high-exposure to AI. The other 45 rate low or moderate.

Battery Ventures led a $40 million Series B in Miter, which runs payroll and workforce operations for more than 2,000 contractors and says it pays about two of every 100 U.S. construction workers.

Bain Capital Tech Opportunities has bought a minority stake in construction project-management software maker Kahua at a valuation above $1 billion. The Alpharetta, Ga., company says it serves more than 2,500 customers, supports over $400 billion in capital programs and has passed $100 million in annualized revenue.

Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer co-led a $350 million round in EliseAI at a $4 billion valuation. The company says its AI agents handle leasing, maintenance, renewals and billing across one in six U.S. apartment units.

The turnaround drops from 24 hours to under 12 for MLSs that buy from both companies — which, since May, have had the same parent.

The Phoenix software company said Sept. 28 it has released an MCP server, letting brokerages connect their own AI agents and internal systems to the data and workflows they keep in Lofty without custom integration code.

Cipher Digital amended its Barber Lake lease with Fluidstack and signed a binding commitment with an unnamed AI lab for a second 10-year term, doubling the Colorado City, Texas campus’s contracted life and adding about $5.2 billion in revenue.

Blossom Capital led the Series A for a company selling AI agents to the in-house teams that manage corporate office portfolios. Meta, Uber, Merck and Cohesity are named as customers, and the former head of Google’s real estate expansion joins as an adviser.

HouseCanary and several affiliates filed for Chapter 11 protection in New Jersey on Sept. 22, the day secured creditor Ocean II PLO LLC had scheduled a California foreclosure sale covering substantially all of the company’s assets. Its $175 million Texas trade-secrets judgment was carved out of the collateral.

PLACE has closed its acquisition of Maxwell, whose point-of-sale software and outsourced fulfillment services help facilitate more than $130 billion in mortgage transactions a year, moving the real estate platform onto the financing side of the deals its agents already work.

MetroList, Northern Nevada Regional MLS and Oregon Data Share have named their joint repository Orion, giving subscribers of each service access to the others’ listings, with direct integration into each MLS planned for a later phase.

The bills require data centers of 10 megawatts or more to report power use to the California Energy Commission, direct the CPUC to write new large-load tariffs by 2028, and strip categorical CEQA exemptions in exchange for a conditional fast lane.

The New York company said Sept. 22 it acquired Zuma, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed maker of AI agents that apartment operators use to capture leads, book tours and collect rent, as Venn approaches one million units under management.

NAR’s 2026 Realtors Technology Report, released Sept. 22, found 23% of agents use AI daily and 25% weekly, while the share ruling it out fell to 12% from the 32% who had not tried it a year earlier.

Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to halt all data center permits on Sept. 21, and told every state agency to hold regulatory approvals until grid and water audits are complete.

The mapping platform’s new tool assembles public records and licensed data for an address, then uses AI to explain what matters and map it. The announcement does not say how the answers are tested.