• Many Americans may experience sticker shock when buying a mocktail or glass of NA wine.
• Restaurants and bars said high-quality ingredients and labor-intensive prep adds to the price.
• Americans, especially those under 25, are spending less on alcohol and looking for NA options.

As Americans spend less on booze and browse menus for non-alcoholic alternatives like mocktails and wine, sticker shock can be a common reaction.

At Binge Bar in Washington, DC, the city's first fully non-alcoholic bar, "spirit-free" cocktails cost between $11 and $14. A glass of NA wine is $15, while a can of NA beer is $5. Prices are similar at other hot spots in Washington, DC. Moon Rabbit, an upscale Vietnamese restaurant, sells several "spirit-free" cocktails for $13 to $14 compared to about $19 for regular cocktails.

On social media, mocktails have been criticized as "glorified" or "sexy" juice that shouldn't be priced similarly to alcohol.

Restaurant owners and bar managers told Business Insider that alcohol alone doesn't drive the price. Mocktails are often made with high-quality ingredients such as botanicals, herbs, and spices, and can take longer to make. That way, customers still feel like they're getting the cocktail experience. Plus, NA whisky, gin, or wine can cost just as much — if not more — than traditional booze in part because removing alcohol is an additional step for manufacturers.

Ingredients account for about 18% of a drink's menu price, according to restaurant industry standards. The rest covers operating costs like labor, rent, and utilities, bar managers said.

This comes at a time when many participate in Dry January or reflect on their drinking after the US Surgeon General released its recent report linking alcohol to cancer.

Gigi Arandid, owner of Binge Bar, said NA cocktails are just as complex as those with alcohol. She spends a lot of time educating customers about special ingredients in Binge Bar's drinks and the health benefits of avoiding alcohol. Sales are up 45% between 2023 and 2024, Arandid said.

She created the most popular drink on the menu, a Cucumber Mangorita, with fresh cucumber juice, mango puree, lime juice, herbs, spices, and tonic. It costs $11 or $14, depending on whether you add a non-alcoholic tequila. The prices reflect the fresh ingredients, labor-intensive prep, and Reposado Tequila, she said.

Do you plan to change your drinking habits in response to the Surgeon General's recommendation? Tell us why in this survey

Unique syrups, herbs, and spices can up prices

At Moon Rabbit, bartenders infuse NA whiskey with five spice, a spice blend commonly used in Vietnamese and Chinese cooking, for 24 hours. The whiskey is made by Lyres, one of the most popular brands in the sector, and at $26 a bottle, it is more expensive than some traditional spirits, said Thi Nguyen, bar director at Moon Rabbit.

"We're not just putting a bunch of juice together," Nguyen said, adding that ingredients like purple shiso and soursop are expensive and challenging to source. "We are really intentional and want to highlight Vietnamese culture."

At Bresca, a Michelin-starred bistro in DC, spirit-free drinks are $12, while regular cocktails are in the $18 to $20 range.

Bresca's Cintronnade al la Menthe, a play on the mint lemonade you might find in France, is a three-day process. While the ingredients are simple — mostly lemon, cardamom, mint lemongrass, and sugar — bartenders make a citrusy syrup known as oleo from scratch, then lightly ferment and carbonate it, said Will Patton, beverage director for Hive Hospitality, which operates Bresca.

Non-alcoholic beer is more accessible

For those not interested in cocktails, NA wine is slowly gaining popularity as manufacturers improve the taste. But don't expect it to be cheap, because winemakers and brewers have to take an additional step to remove the alcohol.

"As a winery, you've already invested in making great quality wine, and then it's more work to run it through an industrial process to remove the alcohol," Sarah Kate, founder of non-alcoholic drinks magazine Some Good Clean Fun, said. "When you do that, you're also removing some of the characteristics of the wine."

Patton said mid-range NA wines cost between $17 and $25 a bottle, comparable to traditional bottles.

The beer industry is further along, with more than 150 brands, such as Athletic Brewing, Heineken, and Budweiser, making NA products. Athletic cofounder Bill Shufelt said in an email that the company's "off-premise" sales — or those at supermarkets and convenience stores — grew by more than 50% between 2023 and 2024. Athletic is now the most popular brand in the category, holding more than 19% market share, Shufelt said.

He added that the company has worked hard to match the price of widely distributed craft beer. Six-packs of Athletic are typically priced between $9.99 and $10.99 on retail shelves. The price is budget-friendly, even after Athletic re-engineered nearly every step of the brewing process to make its products free of alcohol.

"While some may assume that the absence of alcohol should make NA beer less expensive, the reality is that it can cost just as much — or even more — to produce," Shufelt said.

• A fire devasted one of the world's largest secondhand clothing markets in Accra, Ghana.
• Kantamanto Market receives 15 million garments weekly and employs some 30,000 people.
• An advocacy group urged the global fashion industry to provide relief.

A fire devastated one of the world's largest secondhand clothes markets in Accra, Ghana.

The blaze started Thursday and destroyed as much as two-thirds of Kantamanto Market, which employs about 30,000 clothing traders and receives some 15 million garments weekly from wealthy countries like the US, the UK, and China.

Thousands of people lost their stalls. Ghana National Fire Service said the fire was fully extinguished, and no injuries or fatalities were reported. They are still investigating the cause of the fire.

Now, clean-up efforts are underway, and advocacy groups are calling on the global fashion industry to help provide relief.

"This is a critical moment for the global fashion ecosystem to show solidarity, not just by recognizing the value of secondhand markets, but by providing tangible help to rebuild and sustain them," Daniel Mawuli Quist, creative director of The Or Foundation, said in a statement.

The fire calls attention to the global fashion industry's lack of alternatives for waste handling.

Workers in Kantamanto Market resell and remanufacture millions of garments. But the rise of fast fashion has overwhelmed Accra with textile waste piling up in gutters, landfills, and beaches. An estimated 40% of garments go unsold, The Or Foundation found. The nonprofit in Ghana conducts research and offers grants and job training to workers in Kantamanto Market.

The Or Foundation pledged $1 million to relief efforts and set up a fund to raise money for rebuilding the market and providing financial assistance to vendors.

Kantamanto Market before the fire

Up to two-thirds of the market was destroyed

The fire was extinguished on Thursday

The aisles of Kantamanto Market before the fire

Thousands of people have lost their stalls

Metal scrap dealers are going through the rubble now that cleanup efforts are underway

• Real-estate tech startups aim to make tasks from property management to homebuying more efficient.
• We surveyed 10 venture capitalists to identify the hottest proptech companies of the year.
• Some of the firms are modernizing real estate by digitizing analog processes, sometimes using AI.

The frozen housing market meant tough times for the proptech — or property technology — industry.

As the market starts to thaw, however, things are looking up for firms that seek to use technology to digitize, automate, or otherwise improve legacy processes in the worlds of residential and commercial real estate.

Business Insider asked 10 venture-capital investors who focus on real-estate and construction technology to nominate the most exciting, promising, and talked-about proptech startups in 2024.

The 20 companies on the final list reveal the breadth of the proptech universe.

Take Steadily, a firm trying to digitize insurance underwriting for real-estate investors, a process that has historically taken a lot of paperwork and time — only to result in policies with steep premiums. Another startup, Arcol, aims to make producing 3D architectural drawings faster and easier. A third, Conservation Labs, uses an AI-powered sensor to detect if water is leaking or being wasted in a building to prevent damage and protect the environment.

In the first half of 2024, venture funding for proptech companies dropped 14.3% from the same period a year prior. Funding totaled $4.37 billion, down from $5.1 billion during the same period in 2023 and dramatically less than the $13.13 billion invested in the first six months of 2022, according to the Center for Real Estate Technology & Innovation (CRETI), which surveyed 1,088 proptech startups.

Certain niches, however, hold promise. In 2024, VC investments in AI-powered proptech companies reached a record $3.2 billion, CRETI reported earlier this month.

Here are 20 of the buzziest proptech companies in 2024, presented alphabetically. The companies' fundraising numbers are from PitchBook to ensure a consistent data source.

Did we miss a company you think is disrupting the industry? Send reporter Jordan Pandy an email at [email protected].

Agora

City: New York City and Tel Aviv

Year founded: 2019

Total funding: $64.31 million

What it does: Agora is a financial software firm that helps real-estate investors process payments, keep track of tax records, raise money, and generally organize data.

Why it's hot: The firm, which raised a $34 million Series B round in May, said it helps landlords and developers with much-needed modernization.

"Real estate is the largest asset class in the world. However, the market still relies on legacy software providers, inefficient workflows, outdated, fragmented systems, and manual, tedious work," Asaf Raz, Agora's head of marketing, told Business Insider.

"Investors expect a digital-first experience — they're tech-savvy and need access to information quickly. Firms can't work without it, and clients need a platform like Agora more than ever," Raz said.

A challenge it faces: Real-estate investors are still grappling with relatively high interest rates, which makes it harder to borrow money and scale up, and the relatively high price of materials, which makes it tougher to renovate or upgrade properties. Those market forces could make customers more reluctant to spend money on new software.

Agora CEO Bar Mor told business news site Pulse 2.0 earlier this month, however, that Agora might still appeal to customers because its suite of products could help them "enhance efficiency and save costs."

Arcol

City: New York

Year founded: 2021

Total funding: $5.1 million

What it does: Arcol is a web browser-based design tool predominantly used by architects to create and collaborate on 3D models of buildings and explore their feasibility.

Why it's hot: Architects — Arcol's target audience — have traditionally relied on software design tools like AutoCAD and Revit, which require paid licenses and aren't as collaborative. Arcol has set out to solve that issue with a browser-based format easily shared and edited by anyone involved in a building project.

"These people are core to our society; they're literally building the built world, yet they hate using their tools," said Paul O'Carroll, the son of an architect and founder of Arcol. "The design tool we use to design buildings, we want to rethink for the browser to be collaborative and to be performant."

So far, demand is high. Arcol, run by a team of six, has a waitlist of over 18,000 users, O'Carroll said.

A challenge it faces: There are several other startups in the BIM, or Business Information Modeling, space. Competing with established players like Revit could take a lot of time and money, according to AEC Magazine. (AEC stands for architecture, engineering, and construction.)

Also, Arcol is currently only useful to architects during the conceptual modeling phase, and the company hopes to expand the tool to help with other stages of construction.

Branch Furniture

City: New York City

Year founded: 2018

Total funding: $11.76 million

What it does: Branch Furniture sells office products, like chairs and desks, to businesses and directly to consumers.

Why it's hot: The company's first iteration sold office furniture the old way: B2B, catering to employers outfitting a huge space who would often purchase items in bulk. After the pandemic changed how (and how often) workers occupied offices, Branch pivoted to sell to regular people — wherever they work.

"We launched our D2C business to cater to the future of work, which was definitively hybrid, both during COVID and after — and that's where we sit today," Sib Mahapatra, cofounder of Branch Furniture, told Business Insider.

Branch's ergonomic chair is a bestseller with a 4.6 rating out of five with over 6,000 reviews — it's rated among the best in its category by Business Insider, Architectural Digest, and Wired for its adjustability and sleek design.

In addition to desk chairs — in colors that range from a standard black to salmon-y orange hue called "poppy," the company also sells desks and lamps to outfit a home office. Its inventory includes meeting tables and even phone booths ($6,395) for more commercial office spaces.

A challenge it faces: Branch's products are physical, so it's been plagued by supply-chain delays. Branch is also up against competitors in the good-looking-furniture-that-is-also-comfortable arena, including Herman Miller and Steelcase — though Branch's offerings are often cheaper.

The company is also gaining ground regarding velocity, or the speed at which new products are developed and released.

"We're learning a lot about the pace of iteration in our product category," Mahapatra said. "It's definitely not software, but the benefit is that you get more time to really get things right and to iterate with purpose, and you end up being a little bit more deliberate about how you iterate the product — it just takes longer."

BuildCasa

City: Oakland, California

Year founded: 2022

Total funding: $6.67 million

What it does: BuildCasa helps California homeowners subdivide their lots — thanks to new state laws — and then connects them with local builders who pay the homeowners for a portion of their land and then build new housing on it.

Why it's hot: The national housing crisis is particularly acute in California, which recently passed a series of laws to encourage more building. While others look to transform construction to make cheaper housing, BuildCasa uses technology instead to find more buildable lots in desirable locations like San Francisco and San Jose.

Most massive home-building companies focus on large, master-planned communities, often far from city centers. BuildCasa's vision, said its founders Ben Bear, CEO, and Paul Stiedl, CPO, is to become a large homebuilder focused instead on finding land in already desirable cities and suburbs.

The company works with homeowners to subdivide their land, creating a new, buildable lot. Those lots can then be sold to a local real-estate developer to build on, or BuildCasa can work in partnership with a local builder to erect and then sell a completed home.

A challenge it faces: New laws have simplified the process of subdividing lots, but building in infill areas still requires technical expertise and good relationships with local officials. Building on these smaller lots may be becoming easier, but it still isn't easy.

Conservation Labs

City: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Year founded: 2018

Total funding: $14.68 million

What it does: Conservation Labs developed a smart water sensor that can identify leaks and wasteful water use. The H2know sensor uses machine learning to decode sounds in water pipes and translate them into insights for commercial property owners, including restaurants and hotels.

Why it's hot: The startup is at the intersection of two buzzy topics: AI and sustainability. H2know trains on thousands of hours of water pipe acoustics so that, over time, it becomes more accurate in detecting leaks and inefficient water use in buildings. Customers use that information to fix problems and conserve water, saving them money on utility bills while lowering their overall carbon footprint. Some 20% of home energy use goes to heating water.

"There's a very strong relationship between net-zero carbon emissions and water consumption," said Mark Kovscek, founder and CEO of Conservation Labs.

He added that H2know has detected leaky toilets in nearly every building in which it's installed. Some large properties are wasting 1 million gallons of water a year, he said.

A challenge it faces: H2know starts at $129, and it could be hard to convince cash-strapped commercial real estate owners to spend money to install sensors when the office market is struggling in many parts of the US.

Kovscek said the goal is to scale up to 100,000 sensors installed as soon as possible, or five times what Conservation Labs is currently on track to sell this year. To support that growth, the company needs to hire some of the "best and brightest" data scientists and engineers to further develop the machine-learning platform that underpins H2know, Kovscek said.

Constrafor

City: New York

Year founded: 2019

Total funding: Almost $380 million

What it does: Large general contractors use Constrafor's software to onboard and pay their subcontractors on time — sometimes before the contractors themselves get paid by the clients. Contractors can also use the software to help purchase the supplies and services needed to complete a construction project on time and within budget.

Why it's hot: There's the money raised. In November, Constrafor announced that it raised $14 million in Series A funding as well as a $250 million credit facility.

The issues the firm is trying to address are also key. Construction is booming across the US, thanks in part to President Joe Biden's $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. The rise of AI is also leading to a corresponding increase in the construction of data centers.

The actual process of construction, however, can often be long and complicated. That's why Constrafor's role as a one-stop shop appeals to large general contractors.

"So far, everyone has been focused on just building a very, very small point solution," said Anwar Ghauche, Constrafor's founder. "We're combining multiple different workflows, multiple different departments, all on the same platform."

The main challenges it faces: Next up: Constrafor must try to convince subcontractors to subscribe and pay for its software, too.

Gauch added that Constrafor's contractor clients can face cash-flow crunches. Those can lead to delays on important projects.

After Hurricanes Helene and Milton severely damaged parts of Florida, North Carolina, and other parts of the Southeast, Constrafor launched a disaster relief effort that would allow local contractors who are part of rebuilding efforts "to overcome delays, purchase materials, and ensure timely payment for their teams."

Ease Capital

City: New York

Year founded: 2022

Total funding: $13.95 million

What it does: Ease Capital helps private equity firms and large investors lend to smaller apartment landlords. It uses data and technology that allow the biggest players to lend $5 million to $50 million in deals that would typically be too small for them.

Why it's hot: Sophisticated private lenders usually focus on the largest apartment complexes, meaning that most apartment-building owners have to turn to banks and agencies to borrow money to purchase or refinance properties. However, current high rates have dramatically slowed bank and agency lending and the large private lenders usually won't lend for small—and medium-sized projects.

Ease uses data and technology to make it easier and more efficient for these large lenders to lend on smaller deals when the need is the highest. In 2023, the company announced a $450 million partnership with major real estate owner and asset manager Taconic Capital Partners, and has already announced multiple successfully originated loans.

CEO Charlie Oshamn told Business Insider earlier this year that the company is often seeing up to $1 billion in loan requests a month. Unlike other firms, which provide an estimated rate upfront that could potentially change over months of negotiation, Ease Capital sticks to its initial offering, eliminating the guessing game for potential clients.

A challenge it faces: Though the founding team has successfully launched other major proptech businesses, like flexible office and event space provider Convene and real-estate data firm Reonomy, it still needs to prove itself as a lender.

Habi

City: Colombia and Mexico

Year founded: 2019

Total funding: $564 million

What it does: Habi has built Latin America's largest proprietary database and utilizes AI-based pricing algorithms to facilitate transactions and financing for homebuyers and sellers. Habi also buys and sells homes, offers mortgages, and posts and publicizes listings of properties for sale.

Why it's hot: The company operates in Colombia and Mexico without centralized MLS. MLS, or multiple listing services, are databases designed to help real estate brokers identify available homes for sale. These systems are abundant in the US, whereas they are scarce in Latin America. Without an MLS, it means homebuyers and sellers in Colombia and Mexico have difficulty knowing which properties are available for sale, their prices, and their listing and pricing history.

By gathering and sharing information on more than 20 million homes, Habi has addressed a critical need in these countries' real estate sector, establishing itself as an authority on housing in the region.

"We've become a household name for low and middle-income sellers and consumers and brokers in Mexico and Colombia," Brynne McNulty Rojas, CEO and cofounder of Habi, told Business Insider.

A challenge it faces: A combination of factors, including shifting economic and political conditions, has stalled the growth of Latin America's real-estate market. To achieve the same level of ubiquity as Zillow in the US, Habi must get real-estate brokers and sellers to list their properties on its platform and entice buyers to use it.

HoneyHomes

City: Lafayette, California

Year founded: 2021

Total funding: $21.35 million

What it does: Founder Vishwas Prabhakara envisions Honey Homes as a "primary care physician for your home." For a monthly fee, a dedicated handyman will come once or twice a month to knock off "lightweight" home improvement projects like fixing a leaky faucet, installing a new ceiling fan, or repainting a room.

Why it's hot: With a cooling housing market, Prabhakara believes many homeowners are staying in their homes longer and interested in investing resources in — and enjoying — the property they currently have.

The main challenge it faces: Homeowners who already hire their preferred handymen may not be willing to pay for a service that sends new people, and bigger projects might require more specialized repair professionals. Then there's the cost and current smaller scale of the company: Subscriptions start from $295 a month, or $3,940 a year, according to the company website. The service is only available in parts of San Francisco and the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Orange County, and Dallas, according to the site.

Impulse Labs

City: San Francisco

Year founded: 2021

Total funding: $25 million

What it does: Impulse Labs made a battery-powered induction cooktop that, unlike most of its competitors, which may require an electrical upgrade, can plug into a standard 120-volt outlet. The cooktop can boil water at lightning speeds, and sensors hold heat levels steady even at high temperatures.

Why it's hot: Impulse Labs founder Sam D'Amico said the cooktop offers a better cooking experience than gas burners while promoting more climate-friendly homes. Cooking with gas emits pollutants like methane, benzene, and carbon monoxide, which harm our health and the planet. But it can cost thousands of dollars to rewire a home for an electric induction stove. Impulse Labs' induction cooktop avoids those pollutants and the cost of home retrofits.

The battery in Impulse Labs' stove also stores enough power to make three meals if the power goes out, D'Amico said.

"One of the cheapest ways to deploy battery storage is in the appliances we have to buy anyways," he added.

The main challenge it faces: The cooktop costs $5,999. The price is high, D'Amico said, but similar to other premium appliances. The price is lower if buyers qualify for tax breaks and rebates from federal and state governments, as well as some utilities. It's also only a cooktop — not a full stove — but D'Amico said the company eventually wants to sell a suite of appliances that can be a whole-home battery solution. Impulse Labs is accepting pre-orders, with plans to ship in the first quarter of 2025, according to its website.

Keyway

City: New York City

Year founded: 2020

Total funding: $43 million

What it does: Keyway uses machine learning and AI to aid institutional investors in sourcing, underwriting, and managing portfolios of properties.

Why it's hot: Companies that use AI have become commonplace today, but Keyway believes it is ahead of the pack in adopting and applying AI technology to real-estate investing.

"We were very early on in the AI game in 2020, and I think we've built a really strong backend of data with lots of APIs that allows us to integrate very segregated data very fast," CEO and cofounder Matias Recchia told Business Insider. "The fact that we built our system in a modular way also allows us to customize our product to a lot of our customers — so it's really not one solution fits all."

The main challenge it faces: New technology like Keyway can be hard to push on seasoned real-estate investors as they're used to using old-school methods like manually sourcing, underwriting, and managing portfolios.

"We're merging two cultures that are very different," Recchia said. "The real-estate industry requires a lot of proof to show them that data can really help them make better decisions. So there's a little bit of a culture shift that we're bringing to real estate as we sell them these tools and we partner with them."

Latii

City: Brooklyn, New York

Year founded: 2023

Total funding: $8.82 million

What it does: Latii is a sourcing platform that uses AI-powered tools to help North American-based architects and contractors save up to 60% by connecting with Latin American, southern European, and northern African window and door fabricators.

Why it's hot: Architects often include custom windows and doors in their designs, but hiring contractors and craftspeople overseas can cost their property-owning clients thousands of dollars. The architects who work with Latii, however, can source materials faster and at lower costs, cofounder and CEO Santiago Bueno told Business Insider.

"We're able to produce either equal or higher quality products at a less expensive rate," Bueno said.

In October, Latti announced that it had raised $5 million in seed-round funding, which it will use to expand in the Pacific Northwest, Mountain states, and the New York tri-state area.

The main challenge it faces: When working with fabricators in Latin America, challenges can arise in managing certifications, enforcing warranties, and overcoming language barriers. The region's use of the metric system can also be difficult for North America-based architects to navigate.

Lessen

City: Scottsdale, Arizona

Year founded: 2020

Total funding: $713.8 million

What it does: Lessen's software allows commercial and residential landlords to track maintenance needs, connect with service providers, and buy products.

Why it's hot: In August, Inc. magazine named Lessen the fastest-growing private software company in the US, citing its $1.1 billion valuation.

The valuation preceded a major acquisition in 2023: Lessen spent $950 million to buy property maintenance management firm SMS Assist in what the Commercial Observer called the largest proptech acquisition in history.

Lessen's software is widely used, handling 3 million work orders a year across 250,000 properties, according to Fifth Wall, an investor in the firm. Lessen also launched Lessen Advantage Marketplace, which allows its landlord customers to buy materials like glass, floors, and doors and find better insurance and loan rates.

The main challenge it faces: Like many real-estate firms, Lessen faces an overall slowdown in both the commercial and residential sectors, with mortgage rates remaining elevated. One big potential client base for Lessen is office building owners and property managers, but the office market right now is struggling, with vacancies around the US at record highs.

"We typically grow hand-in-hand with our clients, serving them in additional properties and markets as they expand. So, for example, interest rates can influence growth in some areas of our business," said Michael Tanner, senior vice president of marketing at Lessen.

A dearth of tradespeople is also a challenge for the company's platform that connects them to landlords, Tanner said.

Finally, the firm competes in a crowded market of competitors offering software for landlords, including Stessa, AppFolio, TenantCloud, and more.

Metropolis

City: Santa Monica

Year founded: 2017

Total funding raised by the company: $1.93 billion

What it does: Metropolis uses a computer vision platform powered by artificial intelligence to enable checkout-free payment at parking facilities. After registering their vehicles on the Metropolis app, customers can simply drive in and drive out without the hassle of paying with credit cards or ticket machines.

Why it's hot: Metropolis announced its acquisition of SP Plus, the largest parking network in North America, for $1.5 billion in October 2023 and closed the deal in May 2024. The move allowed Metropolis to rapidly scale its technology and reach 50 million customers across 4,000 locations.

"We've seen success and are continuing to scale and grow because Metropolis' checkout-free experiences give people the gift of time back, so they can spend it on the things that matter the most," cofounder and CEO Alex Israel told Business Insider.

The main challenge it faces: Israel said that most of the parking payments and transactions in the world are still analog.

"We envision a future where checkout-free payments travel with you, but scaling this technology across industries is complicated — it requires remarkable proprietary technology and boots on the ground," he said.

PredictAP

City: Boston

Year founded: 2020

Total funding: $13.17 million

What it does: PredictAP makes real estate invoice processing simple and easy. It uses AI to code invoices quickly.

"So the accounting rules can become very complicated in commercial real estate at big companies," said CEO and founder David Stifter, describing the journey of how an invoice is processed.

He said an invoice would come in first, and someone would need to determine which accounting rules to apply. Predict AP will be useful at this stage because the AI will understand and use the accounting rules correctly. Then, it will go through the rest of the accounts payable process, a department responsible for paying vendors for services or goods at the company. Then, someone will approve it and then pay for it.

Why it's hot: Predict AP serves every corner of the real estate sector. The company said its customers are publicly traded companies that own real estate, private companies that own and operate real estate, or customers who provide services for those big companies.

The company has been able to help AP specialists and property managers face difficulties entering invoices because it takes a lot of time and effort.

"We're able to help folks with that difficult task of coding invoices and it's particularly painful in real estate where there's a lot of complexity," said CEO and founder David Stifter. He added: "Nobody wants to be typing 15-digit invoice numbers; that's not fun."

Russell Franks, the president and cofounder of Predict AP, added to his comments and noted that Predict AP could process an invoice in 30 to 40 seconds faster than the normal processing time of five to 10 minutes.

The main challenge it faces: The company shared that it is hard to find funding in this tough economy, and it is not easy to grow and expand.

Propexo

City: Boston

Year Founded: 2022

Total funding: $7.97 million

What it does: Propexo's unified API, or application programming interface, helps other real-estate tech companies quickly and easily integrate with property-management systems.

Why it's hot: Real-estate tech companies use APIs to integrate with data from external sources, like lead generation systems or rent roll systems.

However, existing APIs and the technology around them are outdated.

That means companies lose time and money that could be used to develop their product while trying to integrate with these APIs, said COO Ben Keller.

Propexo's unified API improves the developer experience by making the integration process simpler, faster, and cheaper. "We're really the first engineering infrastructure product in the proptech ecosystem," said Keller.

The main challenge it faces: It's not easy to convince property managers and owner-operators to change how they've been running their businesses for many years.

In August, the Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against RealPage, alleging that the property-management software company allows landlords to coordinate and unfairly keep rents high. This is causing some landlords to rethink how they handle and process information, according to trade publication Multifamily Dive.

Rent Butter

City: Chicago

Year founded: 2020

Total funding: $4 million

What it does: Rent Butter has created an alternative tenant screening process that gives landlords a more comprehensive view of applicants' financial history.

Why it's hot: Landlords have historically relied on static credit reports and background checks when evaluating potential tenants. Doing so creates a barrier for applicants with financial difficulties early in their adult lives, as credit scores are a difficult metric to improve.

Rent Butter is trying to eliminate that barrier and change the narrative around who is a "good" candidate by providing landlords with additional information that can more accurately assess a person's financial reliability.

Their application connects to an applicant's bank account, credit history, and employment, criminal, and rent payment history to provide a detailed one-page report highlighting their financial behaviors and potential risks.

"Our whole approach is: How do we show who the person is today — not who they were seven or 10 years ago," cofounder and CTO Christopher Rankin told Business Insider.

The main challenge it faces: Rent Butter partners with landlords, rather than selling directly to consumers, which makes scaling a challenge. Most landlords already have a tenant-vetting process, so it could be hard to convince them to change to Rent Butter.

Shepherd

City: San Francisco

Year founded: 2021

Total funding: $22.27 million

What it does: Shepherd is a Managing General Underwriter (MGU) leveraging tech to make underwriting commercial construction insurance more efficient. It also wields data to create more informed risk selection and price recommendations, often leading to upfront and long-term savings for policyholders.

Why it's hot: Insurers partner with MGUs to provide clients with insurance, with the MGU underwriting policies for clients and selling to potential policyholders. Shepherd adapts the typical MGU model by cutting the underwriting process from weeks to hours and incorporating risk assessment tech into its platform, making it a one-stop shop for insurers and clients. By working faster and putting these services in one place, Shepherd can better serve construction companies and insurers while fostering more involved relationships.

The main challenges it faces: Both insurance brokers and potential clients have some healthy skepticism about a new model for commercial construction insurance, so it falls on Shepherd to earn their trust to gain their business.

Steadily

City: Austin

Year founded: 2020

Total funding: $60.1 million

What it does: Steadily is a digital insurance company for real-estate investors that promises a "faster, better, and cheaper" underwriting experience.

Why it's hot: Steadily founder Darren Nix first encountered the outdated nature of insurance underwriting, trying to find quotes for his own rental property in Chicago.

Terrible customer service and shockingly high quotes stopped him in his tracks.

"It was like rolling back the clock to the mid-1990s," he told Business Insider. Focusing on selling insurance to real-estate investors has helped Steadily grow to about 140 employees across Austin and Kansas City, Missouri.

In November, Steadily announced it had started to actively write new business on its own insurance carrier. "Nothing says 'we believe in the product we've built' more strongly than underwriting risk as the carrier," Nix said in a statement.

The main challenge it faces: Steadily has started selling insurance to short-term-rental investors, which presents different challenges than underwriting more traditional, longer-term rentals.

The market represents significant growth — accounting for nearly 20% of Steadily's current business — but the pricing is tricker.

"The people coming in and out of those properties don't take care of them at the same level of responsibility," Nix explained. "One of the things that a host can do to demonstrate that they are a good insurance risk is to point to their Airbnb or VRBO history and show that they're a super host, they take great care of their property, they don't host ragers."

Tour24

City: Medfield, Massachusetts

Year founded: 2020

Total funding: $20.35 million

What it does: Tour24 is an app that lets prospective tenants take self-guided apartment tours without a leasing agent present.

Why it's hot: In many cities, renting an apartment can be cutthroat, with open-house lines and bidding wars to nab a good unit at a reasonable price.

More than ever, people are deciding on places to live quickly — sometimes even committing before they've even seen the unit because they aren't able to schedule a walkthrough that jives with their working hours.

Tour24 allows users — who are ID- and credit card-verified — to tour apartments when leasing agents aren't available, such as on evenings and weekends.

"We are seeing that certainly millennials really prefer self-guided experience," Georgianna W. Oliver, the founder of Tour24, told Business Insider.

Oliver said many of their leasing-agency clients offer Tour24's self-guided tours as well as leasing agent-led tours and virtual tours — and have given feedback that the more options they give potential renters, the better.

"People have the options," she said. "And they really like having the options."

The main challenge it faces: Since the worst part of the COVID-19 pandemic, many individual leasing agencies have been offering some version of a self-guided tour on their own with their own video Tour24 also competes with other self-guided rental-tour apps like Rently and CareTaker.

Tour24 seems to be holding its own: The startup announced in October that it raised $5 million in a Series B round, noting that it had doubled in size in 2024 to reach 525,000 units across over 2,060 multifamily properties.

• Homeowners are increasingly being dropped by their private home insurers.
• Regions with the highest nonrenewal rates are most prone to wildfires, hurricanes, and other disasters.
• A new Senate report warns of economic risks as climate change destabilizes insurance markets.

Homeowners across the country are increasingly facing a stark new reality: they're losing their home insurance.

The share of home insurance policies from large insurers that weren't renewed increased last year in 46 states, a report released Wednesday by the Senate Budget Committee found. The increasing frequency and intensity of disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding and the rising cost of rebuilding have pushed many insurers to drop customers or hike premiums. This has left thousands of homeowners scrambling to find new insurance policies or joining the growing ranks of those going without insurance.

More than 200 counties saw their non-renewal rates spike threefold between 2018 and 2023. Counties in Northern California and South Florida saw among the highest rates of nonrenewals. Coastal counties in Massachusetts, Mississippi, and North Carolina also saw dropped policies soar. Manhattan ranks 20th, with rates of dropped policies rising from 1.25% in 2018 to 4.11% in 2023.

The national scale of home insurance nonrenewals was previously unknown because insurance companies are regulated at the state level. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners said not all states collect granular data about the availability and affordability of coverage in some areas. The association in March announced an effort with state insurance regulators to try to fill the gap.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse launched his own investigation into the homeowners' insurance market last year. He received nonrenewal data from 23 companies accounting for about two-thirds of the market. In testimony on Wednesday, Whitehouse said he demanded nonrenewal data because experts suggested policies being dropped were an early warning sign of market destabilization. He also said they correlated with higher premiums.

The American Property Casualty Insurance Association, a lobbying group representing insurance companies, said nonrenewal data doesn't provide "relevant information" on climate risks. Many factors, including a state's litigation and regulatory environment, factor into nonrenewal decisions, the association said.

The association added that more costly weather disasters, combined with inflation and overbuilding in climate-risk regions, are making insurance less affordable for many Americans.

Home insurance premiums are rising in many regions across the country. The National Bureau of Economic Research recently reported that average home insurance premiums spiked by 13%, adjusted for inflation, between 2020 and 2023.

Most mortgage lenders require homeowners to purchase insurance, and some require additional insurance for specific disasters, including flooding. Insurers refusing to offer coverage can hurt home values because homes that can't be insured in the private market are less desirable to potential buyers.

The Senate Budget report warned that the insurance crisis will get worse as the climate crisis fuels more frequent and destructive disasters, including hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding. A destabilized insurance market could "trigger cascading economy-wide financial upheaval," the report said.

"The failure to deal with climate change isn't just driving up the cost of homeowners' insurance, it's making it harder for families to even find homeowners' insurance, and that makes it harder to get a mortgage," Whitehouse said in a statement to Business Insider. "When the pool of buyers is limited to only those who can pay cash, it cuts off pathways to homeownership—particularly for first-time homebuyers—and risks cascading into a crash in property values that trashes the entire economy."

Have you been dropped by your home insurance company or are you facing a steep premium increase? Email these reporters to share your story: [email protected] and [email protected].

• Private home insurers are dropping a growing number of customers in most states, a Senate report found.
• That leaves homeowners at risk, turning to more expensive last-resort options or going uninsured.
• While Florida has managed to reverse the trend somewhat, the risk to homeowners is set to intensify.

As Americans flock to places in the US vulnerable to natural disasters, private home insurance companies are running the other way.

The problem has left a rising number of homeowners with just one option to cover property damage: insurers of last resort.

The scale of homeowners losing their plans became clearer on Wednesday after a Senate Budget Committee investigation found that private insurers' nonrenewals spiked threefold in more than 200 counties between 2018 and 2023.

"What our new data reveal is that the failure to deal with climate change is also affecting whether families can even get homeowners insurance, which threatens their ability to get a mortgage, which spells trouble for property values in climate-exposed communities across the country," Senate Budget Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse said in releasing the report.

A recent study by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies found that between 2018 and 2023, the number of properties enrolled in California and Florida's insurers of last resort more than doubled. A similar trend is playing out in Louisiana. While Florida has reduced participation this year, it still has the highest enrollment in the country.

The problem isn't isolated to the most predictable states. The Senate Budget Committee found that the rate of homeowners losing their private insurance also rose in Hawaii, North Carolina, and Massachusetts.

Policymakers and insurers are trying to stabilize the private market, by enacting new laws and overhauling regulations. However, with scientists predicting that climate-fueled disasters will become more frequent and severe for the foreseeable future, the risk to America's homeowners is mounting.

Growing insurance risk has some states looking for solutions

In nearly three dozen states, insurers of last resort, known as Fair Access to Insurance Requirements, or FAIR, are available to homeowners and businesses who struggle to find insurance on the private market.

The numbers are rising because private insurers are pulling back coverage and hiking premiums in areas at risk of wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, and other disasters often made worse by climate change.

While state-mandated FAIR plans are designed to be a backstop, insurance regulators and private insurance companies are alarmed by how many homeowners and businesses are enrolling, especially in California and Florida. The plans are often more expensive and provide less coverage. Plus, saddling one insurer with the riskiest policies increases the chances of one major disaster sinking the system and leaving taxpayers and insurance companies with the bill.

Florida and California are trying to reverse the trend, and Florida has seen some progress. The state's insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, said on December 4 that its policy count dropped below 1 million for the first time in two years.

Mark Friedlander, a spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, said the drop reflects a series of changes in recent years to stabilize the state's private insurance market after more than a dozen companies left the state or stopped writing new policies.

The Florida legislature passed laws to curb rampant litigation and claim fraud that drove up legal costs for private insurers. Friedlander said insurance lawsuits in the first three quarters of 2024 are down 56%, compared with the first three quarters of 2021 — the year before the new laws were enacted. Citizens also started a "depopulation" program that shifts customers to the private market. State regulators in October said they had approved at least nine new property companies to enter the market, and premiums weren't rising nearly as much as last year.

In California, many of the deadliest and most destructive wildfires have occurred within the last five years. As a result, some private insurers are hiking premiums and limiting coverage in risky areas, pushing more homeowners to the insurer of last resort. The Harvard study found that policies in the state's FAIR plan doubled between 2018 and 2023 to more than 300,000. As of September, the California Insurance Commission said policies totaled nearly 452,000.

The commission is working to overhaul regulations to slow the trend, including requiring private insurers to sell in risky areas. In exchange, it should be easier for companies to raise premiums that factor in reinsurance costs and the risks of future disasters. That should help stabilize rates, said Michael Sollen, a spokesman for the commission.

Sollen added that in the past, private insurers could seek approval for higher premiums but weren't required to offer coverage in wildfire-prone areas.

"In a year from now, what's happening with the FAIR plan will be a key measure for us," he said. "We expect to see those numbers start to stabilize and go down."

A mounting home insurance crisis

Still, a reduction in state-backed plans isn't necessarily a sign of progress, Steve Koller, a postdoctoral fellow in climate and housing and author of the Harvard report, told Business Insider.

A growing number of homeowners in places like Florida, Louisiana, and California are purchasing private insurance from nontraditional providers barely regulated by state governments. These so-called "non-admitted" insurers don't contribute to a state fund that guarantees homeowners will have their claims paid even if the insurance provider fails, leaving their customers without access to this backup coverage.

"Someone could be moving to a private insurer from Citizens, and that insurer might have higher insolvency risk," Koller said.

He added that more homeowners are opting out of insurance altogether. The number of US homeowners going without insurance has soared from 5% in 2019 to 12% in 2022, the Insurance Information Institute reported.

Plus, Americans are increasingly moving into parts of the country most vulnerable to extreme weather. Tens of thousands more people moved into the most flood—and fire-prone areas of the US last year rather than out of them, the real estate company Redfin reported earlier this year.

As insurers of last resort try to shift more risk to the private market, home insurance premiums are expected to keep rising. That's especially true in the areas hardest hit by climate-fueled disasters.

If private insurers exit hard-hit regions en masse in the future, Koller said states might need to become the predominant insurance provider in the same way the National Flood Insurance Program took over after the private market for flood insurance collapsed in the 1960s. Most flood insurance plans are still issued by the federal government.

"My guess is states are going to work very, very hard to avoid that and ensure the existence of a robust private market, but that's a parallel that I can't personally unthink about," he said.

Have you struggled to get home insurance, moved to an insurer of last resort, or gone uninsured? Contact these reporters at [email protected] or [email protected].

• The Biden administration on Wednesday approved California's ban on gas cars by 2035.
• Trump has promised to revoke California's authority to set strict limits on tailpipe pollution.
• It's a high-stakes fight over the future of electric vehicles and tackling the climate crisis.

The stage is set for another battle between President-elect Donald Trump and California over the state's aggressive push for electric vehicles that could affect the rest of the country.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday said California can go ahead with its ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. The approval is an attempt to safeguard the state's strict limits on tailpipe pollution from Trump's promise to revoke them and roll back other federal incentives for electric vehicles.

The stakes are high for automakers because what happens in California can dictate companies' broader EV strategies and the pace of the country's shift away from fossil fuels. The state accounts for some 11% of the US auto market and is also the top EV market in the country. In the first half of 2024, EVs and hybrids accounted for nearly 40% of sales in California.

On top of that, 11 other states and Washington D.C. have adopted rules similar to California's as they seek to reduce the country's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. The rules require automakers to sell a growing number of zero-emissions vehicles over time. In 2026, at least 35% of new cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs must be electric in California and five other states, while other states' targets kick in in 2027.

Automakers largely support easing emissions regulations

While Trump will face legal challenges in trying to roll back California's rules, he could find some automakers on his side.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a lobbying group representing most new vehicle manufacturers in the US, has already asked Trump to ease emissions regulations but keep federal tax incentives that keep EVs affordable.

John Bozzella, president of the alliance, said Wednesday that the waiver was an expected development and the Trump administration will likely revoke it next year.

"We've said the country should have a single, national standard to reduce carbon in transportation," Bozzella said in a statement. "But the question about the general authority of California to establish a vehicle emissions program – and for other states to follow that program – is ultimately something for policymakers and the courts to sort out."

Trump, some Republican lawmakers, and groups linked to fossil fuel interests have repeatedly attacked EVs on the campaign trail, falsely claiming that Americans would be forced to abandon their gas-powered vehicles.

Those attacks come as the EV market deals with a marked slowdown in demand, forcing many companies to reasses their long-term plans for battery-powered cars and, in some cases, add more hybrids to the mix. A pullback in production has made it harder for many companies to meet long-term emissions requirements. Automakers including General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis have laid off thousands of workers.

Auto market analysts, environmental lawyers, and policy experts told Business Insider that they expect the shift to zero-emissions vehicles to continue regardless of who's in the White House — albeit at a slower pace if Trump and Congress overturn tax incentives to buy EVs and investments in charging infrastructure.

"Whatever the Trump administration does this time, automakers' concerns about stability will come up again because all of these manufacturers have said zero-emissions vehicles are the future," Sean Donahue, an attorney who's represented the Environmental Defense Fund in litigation over California's emissions waiver, said.

He added that there's pressure from regulators in other countries to address the climate crisis. US automakers also don't want to fall far behind competitors in countries like China, where affordable EVs have taken off.

California looks to 'Trump-proof' its regulations

Even if Trump does revoke California's emissions waiver, Gov. Gavin Newsom is already trying to "Trump-proof" the state, including its EV and climate policies.

Newsom said he would restore rebates for consumers who buy EVs if Trump ends the federal $7,500 tax credits enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act. This month, the state's energy commission approved a $1.4 billion investment in EV charging and hydrogen fuel stations over the next four years. The commission said the funding could help build nearly 17,000 new public chargers for passenger vehicles — on top of the 152,000 available now.

Newsom also convened a special legislative session to bolster California's defenses against Trump's attacks. Lawmakers could pass $25 million in new funding for the California Department of Justice so the state can file litigation against the Trump administration. That will likely happen if Trump revokes the state's tailpipe pollution waiver.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump transition team, said that Trump plans to stop what he says are attacks on gas-powered cars.

"When he takes office, President Trump will support the auto industry, allowing space for both gas-powered cars AND electric vehicles," she said in an email.

Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California at Los Angeles, told Business Insider that she expects the Trump administration to face an uphill legal battle.

She said the EPA has approved California's authority to set strict rules for tailpipe pollution for decades because the state's air quality is so bad. Otherwise, areas including Los Angeles and the Central Valley wouldn't comply with federal air pollution laws and could be penalized.

"The sanction is the withholding of federal highway funds," Carlson — who recently served as chief counsel to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — said. "It's quite draconian. So California has a pretty good argument that it needs these waivers to meet federal law."

The Supreme Court last week agreed to consider a lawsuit that oil and gas producers filed against the EPA over its waivers allowing California to set stricter limits on tailpipe pollution than the federal government. However, SCOTUS will only decide whether fossil fuel makers have standing to sue over what they say is bureaucratic overreach and won't consider whether California's waiver is legal.

James Di Filippo, a principal policy analyst at the research firm Atlas Public Policy, said automakers will likely continue to walk back their EV investments while the legal battles play out. Companies could seek another compromise with California to restore more certainty as they plan new vehicle models for years to come.

"If they're uncertain about a regulatory outcome, they'll default to a less intense push," he said.

• Auto execs see an opportunity to roll back state EV mandates under President-elect Donald Trump.
• Nissan and Toyota say state rules requiring a rapid uptick in EV sales are unrealistic.
• Automakers are facing slowing EV demand, job cuts, and competition from China.

Some auto executives see an opportunity with the incoming Trump administration to roll back state rules requiring a rapid uptick in electric vehicle sales.

Executives at Nissan, Toyota, and the auto industry's largest US lobbying group say it will be impossible for the industry to meet aggressive timelines to phase out gas-powered cars and trucks by 2035 in a dozen states including California and New York, as well as Washington, DC. In six states, a target kicks in in 2026, when at least 35% of new car sales must be EVs.

"It will take a miracle to be achieved," Jérémie Papin, senior vice president of Nissan, said this week during an event in Washington, DC. "That's where others need to do a reality check on what's possible."

He noted that EVs accounted for about 9% of new car sales nationwide in the third quarter — a record, but still far short of what regulators are requiring by 2026.

Automakers, facing lower-than-expected demand for EVs this year, are pulling back on production, and some companies are cutting jobs to save costs. At the same time, they have poured billions of dollars into EVs and executives say they are committed to the transition, especially to stay competitive with China as it churns out more affordable EVs. That balancing act has put the industry in a delicate position with Trump who railed against EVs on the campaign trail, vowing to kill tax credits and other incentives encouraging Americans to buy them.

Now the industry is strategizing how to influence Trump, including on EV sales requirements they view as too ambitious. Trump will likely take their side.

At a campaign event in Michigan in October, he said no state would be allowed to ban gas-powered cars. Trump during his first term tried to revoke California's authority to set stricter limits on tailpipe pollution than the federal government. California is granted that authority under the Clean Air Act but must get waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency. Biden restored the states' authority — a move currently being litigated and could reach the Supreme Court.

To avoid uncertainty, a group of automakers, including BMW, Ford, Honda, and Volkswagen, struck an agreement with California in 2020 to follow the state's rules through 2026.

The rules are stricter than federal regulations issued earlier this year by the Biden administration's EPA. Those federal rules aren't an "EV mandate," as Trump falsely said on the campaign trail. Rather, automakers can choose how to curb greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks, SUVs, and vans sold between 2027 and 2032. The agency estimated the rules could boost EVs to up to 56% of new car sales, with the rest from a mix of hybrids and gas vehicles.

'Not ready to go electric'

Dealers, which were the first to sound the alarm on changes in the EV market last year, have argued that state and federal emissions requirements are out of step with demand. As companies push to meet these requirements, dealers complain they are stuck with unpopular EVs on their lots.

"A majority of customers are simply not ready to go electric right now," Dave Kelleher, a Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram dealer in Pennsylvania, told BI. "Maybe with a new administration, some of those fines will become a thing of the past, or even mitigated."

Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for Trump's transition effort, said Trump will stop attacks on gas-powered cars.

"When he takes office, President Trump will support the auto industry, allowing space for both gas-powered cars AND electric vehicles," she said in an email.

John Bozella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents companies producing nearly all the new vehicles sold in the US, sent a letter to Trump in November asking that he ease emissions regulations but keep EV tax incentives fueling domestic investment in the supply chain.

An analysis commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that companies have announced $312 billion in planned investments in EVs and battery production since Biden took office in 2021, fueled partly by tax incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act.

One automaker, Toyota, supports doing away with EV mandates and subsidies altogether. In a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Toyota Chief Operating Officer Jack Hollins wrote that state mandates distort the market because companies funnel zero-emissions vehicles to those locations and ultimately limit choices for customers.

General Motors initially sided with Trump in his crusade against California's EV rules, but dropped its support of the legal battle after Biden won the 2020 election. It's unclear whether the automaker would once again side with Trump if he tries to roll back emissions requirements. Paul Jacobson, General Motors' executive vice president and chief financial officer, told reporters that ideally there'd be more consistency between federal and state rules. But the automaker will respect regulators' authority, he said.

"There's a lot at stake here," Jacobson said during the event in Washington. "That's why we talk about being nimble across the board, because sometimes it's the marketplace and sometimes it might be the regulatory environment. But we can't make excuses for poor performance. It's not just Washington. It's China, it's Europe. There's a lot of things going on all over the world and we have to be able to respond to that."

• Elon Musk says he wants to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• The CFPB was created after the 2008 crisis to protect consumers from financial abuses.
• The CFPB has recouped billions for consumers but has long faced political and legal challenges.

In his efforts to cut government costs, Elon Musk has thrown his support behind slashing a federal office created in the wake of the Great Recession to regulate financial services used by Americans.

"Delete CFPB," Musk wrote on X early Wednesday of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies."

Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, has been tasked with heading up the Trump-created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and finding ways to reduce spending and streamline bureaucracy within the federal government. The unofficial advisors have floated "deleting" entire agencies, laying off staff, and enforcing return-to-office mandates.

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Trump's transition team said she had nothing to add to Musk's statement.

While it's unclear how DOGE and the incoming Trump Administration would abolish agencies, if it does, the CFPB could be on the chopping block. Here's a look at its purpose, employee makeup, and political controversies.

Why it was created

The CFPB was created by Congress as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The law aimed to strengthen oversight of Wall Street after its risky mortgage lending practices caused the global financial crisis. The CFPB has a broad mandate to protect Americans from deceptive or abusive practices by US financial firms. The agency investigates consumer complaints related to credit cards, loans, bank accounts, and debt collection and enforces consumer protection laws.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School, originally proposed the agency in 2007. In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Warren to head the CFPB's steering committee to help establish it.

"The time for hiding tricks and traps in the fine print is over," Warren said during a White House ceremony that year. "This new bureau is based on the simple idea that if the playing field is level and families can see what's going on, they will have better tools to make better choices."

How many people it employs

As of March 2024, the CFPB employed just under 1,700 people, earning an average of about $184,000 a year, according to the Office of Personnel Management. The Bureau's 2024 financial report broke that workforce into six groups; about 43% of CFPB's employees work in the supervision and enforcement of financial institutions, 18% in operations supporting the Bureau's other initiatives, and 14% in research, monitoring, and regulations.

What it has accomplished

Since its founding, the CFPB has recouped $19.6 billion for consumers through direct compensation, canceled debt, and reduced loan principals.

The agency has also issued $5 billion in civil penalties against banks, credit unions, debt collectors, payday lenders, for-profit colleges, and other financial services companies. That money is deposited into a victims' relief fund, with nearly 200 million people eligible for relief.

Some of CFPB's most high-profile enforcement actions have been against Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The agency in 2023 accused Bank of America of harming hundreds of thousands of customers by charging illegal fees, withholding credit card cash and reward points, and enrolling them in credit card accounts without their knowledge. Bank of America agreed to pay $250 million. In 2022, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $3.7 billion — a record sum — after a CFPB investigation alleged the bank mismanaged auto loans, mortgages, and deposit accounts, causing some customers to lose their vehicles and homes.

Last week, the agency finalized a rule expanding its oversight to big tech companies like Apple, Google, and Venmo, which offer digital wallets and payment apps and process some 13 billion transactions a year. Earlier this year, the CFPB also limited credit card late fees to $8 a month, compared to the average $32 fee charged by issuers in 2022.

Political controversy

Democrats designed the CFPB to have political independence by funding it through the Federal Reserve rather than While Democrats argue that the CFPB's independence is crucial to its efficacy, Republicans say the agency's funding source and governing structure make it unaccountable to the public and encourage regulatory overreach.

Since its founding, the CFPB has faced legal challenges from Republicans and the banking industry, who've taken issue with a slew of agency policies, including those regulating credit card late fees and those making it easier for consumers to switch between banks.

In May 2024, the Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the agency's funding structure, reversing a lower court decision in a 7-2 ruling. The high court's decision — authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative — has bolstered the agency but likely won't shield it from ongoing criticism and legal attacks.

Not everything the agency does has courted controversy. Recently, the agency won praise from Republicans for a new rule that would allow consumers to have more control over how their financial data is used by banks and other financial firms.

• Trump's Cabinet picks for Interior, Energy, and EPA are allies of the oil and gas industry.
• They plan to expand drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and on federal lands and roll back climate rules.
• Scientists warn that burning more fossil fuels will worsen the climate crisis.

President-elect Donald Trump wants to stack his Cabinet with oil and gas supporters who plan to make it easier to drill on federal lands and waters and repeal climate rules for the industry.

If confirmed by the Senate, three key nominees would largely be responsible for executing Trump's "drill, baby, drill" agenda across the federal government.

Trump tapped Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a Republican with ties to fossil-fuel executives, to serve as interior secretary. The Interior Department leases millions of acres of public lands and waters for oil and gas drilling.

Chris Wright, the CEO of the fracking company Liberty Energy, is nominated to serve as energy secretary. The Energy Department's pause on approvals of new export terminals for shipping US gas overseas is a top target of the incoming Trump administration, as are billions of dollars' worth of loans and grants accelerating the US transition to renewable energy.

And Lee Zeldin, a former congressman from New York who often voted against climate legislation, has been tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates pollution from cars, trucks, power plants, and oil and gas infrastructure.

Burgum would coordinate the effort as the chair of the National Energy Council, which Trump in a statement on Truth Social said would consist of all the departments and agencies involved with "permitting, regulating, producing, generating, distributing, and transporting energy." Cutting red tape and regulations is their mandate, Trump said.

Scientists say that the US and other major economies must reduce the burning of fossil fuels to slow the climate crisis — which is already making hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves, and droughts more destructive around the globe. Trump and his allies in the oil and gas industry argue that the US should boost production to drive down prices and help lower inflation, an issue voters cited as a main concern in the election this year. Energy analysts have said gas prices are mostly determined by global supply and demand, not the actions of any one president.

Here are three actions Trump's Cabinet is gearing up to take, based on interviews with several groups helping shape his agenda. When asked about these priorities, Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance campaign, said: "The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver.

Resume approvals of new gas export facilities

At the Energy Department, Wright, if confirmed, is expected to start approving permits for new gas export terminals, which have largely been paused in 2024 by the Biden administration.

Biden paused approvals of new terminals in January until the department could analyze their impacts on greenhouse-gas emissions and energy costs for consumers. A federal judge blocked the pause this summer, and the department has greenlighted one permit since then. Republicans and the oil and gas industry accused the Biden administration of intentionally holding up the process. They argue the delays undercut America's leverage over its competitors, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Russia, and cost jobs at home.

The pause didn't affect terminals already under construction, which are on track to double US gas exports by the end of this decade, federal data shows. Some energy analysts and consumer advocates have said America's dominance in the global market could expose customers to more-volatile prices. A cold snap in Europe or unrest in the Middle East could spike demand for gas — and therefore prices — and the climate crisis is increasing the risks of extreme weather shocks.

"The incoming administration has an opportunity to bolster America's geopolitical strength by lifting the Department of Energy's LNG permitting pause, swiftly processing all pending export applications, and ensuring the open access of American energy to global markets," Amanda Eversole, the chief advocacy officer of the American Petroleum Institute, told reporters during a call last week.

Permit more oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico

The Interior Department between 2024 and 2029 is set to hold three lease sales for oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico — the fewest number since the program began decades ago. The sales were required by the Inflation Reduction Act, which directed the department to offer a minimum amount of oil and gas leases before opening an auction for offshore-wind developers.

The oil and gas industry is pushing the Trump administration to issue a new five-year offshore-leasing program.

"There are companies that would pay for leases in the western Gulf of Mexico today if there was an auction held," said Kenny Stein, the vice president for policy at the American Energy Alliance, a conservative group advising Trump's energy agenda. "They have platforms and equipment already in place and could start drilling quickly."

ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods similarly told CNBC earlier this month that there were areas in the Gulf of Mexico that could be tapped for more oil production in the long term. He doesn't expect a major US oil boom, however, because the market is already well supplied, he said.

The incoming Trump administration is also expected to shrink national monuments in the West to open up more public lands to drilling and mining, though those moves would likely be challenged by environmental groups in court, Stein said.

Roll back climate rules

Trump has promised to "kill" the EPA's regulations that limit emissions from cars, trucks, power plants, and oil and gas wells, pumps, and storage tanks. He has also called the Inflation Reduction Act the "green new scam" and promised to claw back subsidies for renewable energy under the law.

It's a replay of Trump's first term, when the EPA scrapped nearly 100 environmental rules. This time, some climate rules have support from automakers and big oil and gas companies. Woods of ExxonMobil told Semafor last week that the Trump administration should keep regulations to curb methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure. The largest US automaker group has said that the future is electric and companies are investing billions in the transition. But Trump attacked electric vehicles on the campaign trail, adopting the oil and gas lobby's messaging.

A full repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act is unlikely, in part because the majority of $220 billion in investments in manufacturing EVs, batteries, solar panels, and other renewables technologies are flowing to Republican congressional districts, David Brown, the director of the energy-transition service at Wood Mackenzie, said in a statement.