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Associated Press
29-04-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Villa Raises $40M to Fast-Track Construction of Attainable Housing
Villa Has Created a Scalable, Affordable Alternative to Traditional On-Site Construction and is Modernizing the Way That New Housing is Built With Offsite Construction SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA / ACCESS Newswire / April 29, 2025 / Villa, a leading offsite homebuilding platform, today announced that it has raised $20 million of new funding to accelerate its mission of making homebuilding easier, faster, and more cost-efficient. The round was led by Unless with participation from existing investors Atomic and Tectonic Ventures, and other undisclosed strategic investors. This funding will enable Villa to scale its operations and advance its vision of using offsite homebuilding to make housing more attainable for many Property With Two Villa Homes on Lot In addition to its platform-level fundraise, Villa has established a 'PropCo' development joint venture with Unless with an initial commitment of $20M of equity capital. This joint venture is actively funding development of entry-level homes using Villa's offsite construction platform across multiple projects located in prime locations. The joint venture has already closed on its initial acquisitions of infill development land sites in both California and Colorado, which are now breaking ground. Villa will begin delivering homes available for sale to homebuyers later this year. Unless has a feature to increase its commitment by an additional $30M+ over time as Villa's development program scales, which, when fully deployed, is expected to fund the development of more than 350 homes. Villa's capital-light business model functions as a demand aggregation and fulfillment platform, partnering with numerous offsite homebuilding factories. Villa combines these supply chain partnerships - which include some of the largest factories in the U.S. - with technology purpose-built to deliver offsite construction at scale with a modern customer experience. Its tech-forward approach leverages AI, machine learning, and software tools to boost construction efficiency. Villa's diverse supply chain allows it to efficiently build a wide range of housing products, including accessory dwelling units (ADUs), single-family homes, duplexes/triplexes, townhomes, and other typologies. 'We believe the best solution to America's housing affordability and availability crisis is to increase the supply of smaller, entry-level homes by using modern offsite construction, technology, and operational discipline to rethink how homes are built and bought,' says Villa CEO Sean Roberts. 'While building homes in factories is something America has done for decades, it has been an underutilized tool for adding new housing in the context of the current affordability crisis. Offsite construction delivers faster timelines and drives greater cost efficiency than most other methods. With Villa pushing the frontiers of how offsite construction can be deployed, offsite is poised to become a much bigger portion of the supply landscape in the coming decade.' This funding comes on the heels of strong momentum for Villa, marked by several key milestones: 'Villa has proven that its innovative, capital-light approach can scale rapidly while maintaining cost-efficient, high-quality delivery of homes in highly desirable neighborhoods,' says Aaron Marsh, partner/CFO at Unless. 'In a housing market where affordability is increasingly out of reach, Villa is leading the charge on building a scalable, attainable solution that brings offsite construction into a new era of adoption. This funding will allow the Villa team to build on their success and radically expand the commercialization of factory-built housing into new applications - something we see as a massive opportunity over the next decade given the many structural tailwinds behind the Villa thesis.' About Villa: Villa is a next-generation homebuilding platform that applies modern offsite construction methods and technology to efficiently build much-needed housing. Villa's mission is to be the easiest, fastest, and most cost-efficient way to build high-quality homes. By partnering with a wide network of offsite housing manufacturers that build home products to Villa's designs and specifications, Villa acts as a technology-powered demand aggregation and fulfillment platform. From discovery and feasibility to permitting, installation, project management, and post-completion service, Villa offers a seamless, end-to-end customer experience. Villa also operates as a merchant homebuilder and principal developer with capital partners. For more about Villa, please visit About Unless: Unless is an investment firm that delivers unique insights and partnership for industrial entrepreneurs and limited partners. Purpose-built to catalyze the new industrial revolution, Unless invites our partners to reflect on what's at stake and envision the possibilities. For more about Unless, please visit For Media Inquiries, Please Contact: Mandy Menaker [email protected] Contact InformationMandy Menaker Founder, Mandy Menaker CommunicationsJessica Brown Director of Marketing 9702149684 SOURCE: Villa Homes press release
Zawya
30-01-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Record number of CEOs left their roles in 2024 as AI and investor activism drive departures
Across all tracked indices, a record number also lasted less than 36 months on the job in signs of investor impatience for results Tech CEO turnover grew globally by 90% as AI drives transformational change Worldwide, 85% of incoming CEOs were first-timers – with the nature of the role now including more pressure and scrutiny than ever before, fewer candidates consider repeating the role Dubai, UAE – Last year saw the highest global CEO turnover on record* as investor activism, technological change and retirements saw 202 CEOs depart their roles. Russell Reynolds Associates' 2024 Global CEO Turnover report saw 202 CEOs in the world's largest listed companies leave their jobs last year, up by 9% from 2023. The analysis, which tracks incoming and outgoing CEOs from 13 global indices, also found a record number of CEOs (43) departing after less than 36 months as activist investor patience for underperformance ran thin. Rusty O'Kelley, RRA Co-Lead Board and CEO Advisory Partners in the Americas said: 'In addition to dealing with the needs of employees, investors and other stakeholders, CEOs will also need to carefully manage their relationships with governments, and this may well lead to even higher rates of turnover. The bottom line is that the job just got even harder.' The majority of indices saw elevated turnover, with the S&P 500 losing 58 CEOs last year – a 21% increase on 2023 and the second highest on record. The FTSE 100, however, bucked this trend. In a year of political change and economic challenges, FTSE boards largely stuck by their CEOs with only 12 departing in 2024, a 14% decrease on last year. AI increases tech CEO turnover by 90% The highest turnover rate globally was in the technology sector. A record 40 tech CEOs left their posts last year, up 90% on 2023. As AI continues to disrupt business models in the sector, leaders must drive through not just technological progress but cultural, commercial and organizational change as well. As a result, the tech CEO class of 2024 is clearly different to other sectors. Just 8% of incoming tech CEOs last year had previous CEO experience as boards looked for leaders who can combine deep technical understanding, customer centricity and the ability to navigate rapid growth and transformation. This need for agility has seen COO become the most important incubator for CEO talent across all sectors. An ability to think through how technological change can impact not just business models but people, culture and supply chains has seen 21% of all incoming CEOs in 2024 coming from COO roles. RRA consultant and member of the Technology Practice, Sean Roberts said: 'The technology sector is going through a period of profound change, and this change is being turbo-charged by Gen AI, digital infrastructure investment and continued growth in software. This has triggered the creation of new or growing companies requiring CEO talent. However, we have also seen expectations of increased performance or strategic change have a direct impact on the increase in CEO work.' First-time (and only-time) CEOs The report also found that a combination of improved succession planning and increased pressures of the CEO role are making the serial CEO a rarer sight. The vast majority (85%) of incoming CEOs in 2024 were step-up candidates taking on CEO positions for the first time. This is partly explained by a wave of CEO retirements. In the context of rising scrutiny from policymakers and investors, almost a third (30%) of departing CEOs decided to retire from the executive role entirely. As a result, 2024 was a record year for planned successions. Almost a quarter (22%) of all CEO departures occurred as part of a planned succession process with 73% of all incoming CEOs coming from within the organization – an all-time high. This figure was even higher for the tech industry, with 84% of incoming CEOs being internal hires. Laura Sanderson, Co-Head of Europe, Middle East & India at Russell Reynolds Associates said: 'The compounded pressure on CEOs globally has exacerbated the need for adequate succession planning within firms, and last year's figures tell a hugely positive story for this. Firstly, it's a sign that boards are being more proactive and long-term in their thinking when it comes to succession planning and it's also encouraging to see lower levels of CEO removals.' In recent years, the role of the CEO has undergone significant transformation, with business leaders now incurring heightened and often contradictory demands from employees, shareholders and clients, ranging from remote work and office mandates, sustainability credentials and geopolitical involvement, and economic pressures on most business sectors. In an age where CEOs are subjected to more public scrutiny and pressure than ever before, many have decided to not take on repeat CEO posts, becoming one-time CEOs and graduating to board or NED roles following their tenure. Gender parity a decade closer, but still a lifetime away The report's findings show that it will take 72.5 years to reach global CEO gender parity, at the current rate of change. This shows a significant improvement upon last year's figures, which predicted 81 years to reach gender parity at current rates. Nonetheless, the goalpost of parity remains a lifetime away, emphasising that the rate of change must accelerate. The DAX and the FTSE 100 are the indices leading the charge with the fastest acceleration towards gender parity among CEOs, with 33.8 and 39 years remaining, respectively. In 2024, 24 newly appointed women CEOs represented 11% of total appointments – the second highest number of women taking on the post since RRA began collecting data in 2019. With firms placing stronger emphasis on succession plans and CEO churn higher than ever, this creates further opportunities for women leaders to rise to CEO seats previously occupied by men. -Ends- *Data covers the past 6 years Notes: Years to gender parity as of December 2024 is derived from a retrospective analysis projecting the current trend of CEO appointments backward while adjusting for the estimated number of women CEOs at that time. Data should be viewed as a directional indicator due to changes in index composition over the past 12 months. Russell Reynolds Associates' Global Index of CEO Turnover tracks CEO departures from constituent companies of the following global stock indices: ASX 200, CAC 40, DAX, Euronext 100, FTSE 100, FTSE 250, HANG SENG, Nikkei 225, NSE Nifty 50, S&P 500, S&P/TSX Composite, STI and SMI. More data and analysis can be found at the dedicated Global Index of CEO Turnover section of the Russell Reynolds website at: Classification of the reasons for CEO departures is derived from a comprehensive review of publicly available information, including news publications, official announcements, and relevant articles around the time of each CEO's departure announcement. This categorization is intended to provide insight into overarching trends and should be interpreted within the context of the best available information at the time of the analysis. About Russell Reynolds Associates Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA) is a global leadership advisory firm. Our 500+ consultants in 47 offices work with public, private, and non-profit organizations across all industries and regions. We help our clients build teams of transformational leaders who can meet today's challenges and anticipate the digital, economic, and political trends that are reshaping the global business environment. From helping boards with their structure, culture, and effectiveness, to identifying, assessing, and defining the best leadership for organizations, our teams bring their decades of expertise to help clients address their most complex leadership issues. We exist to improve the way the world is led. Media Contacts Russell Reynolds Associates Sarah Carlyle, Marketing Director EMEA Email:
