The funding will be used to drive Sugar’s continued growth with property owners and cities as well as expand its software engineering and sales teams and build its corporate structure.
The app has a Facebook-like origin story, beginning on university campuses across the country, according to Fatima Dicko, founder and chief executive.
In the beginning, JetPack was a delivery service consisting of students with backpacks who would fetch anything from food and energy drinks to aspirin and snacks for students living in dormitories.
But at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, Dicko pivoted to a new business model. The name for the business was changed to Sugar, and Dicko gave the app another chance after pasting the QR code on the wall of an elevator in the six-story apartment complex near MacArthur Park where she lived.
“I lived there for almost two years and didn’t know anyone,” said the 31-year-old Dicko, who was born in Mali and emigrated to New York City as a child. “Covid forced us to shift from campuses to apartment buildings.”
She hoped it would facilitate social interactions with others during the early days of the pandemic, giving people an outlet to chat and meet up for walking dogs, watering plants or participating in social meetings.
Dicko wants to grow the business with more property owners and include dashboard features on the smartphone app such as making rental payments, submitting maintenance requests or unlocking automated doors.
Sugar’s rivals include Seattle-based ActiveBuilding and New York-based BuildingLink.com.
Investors in this round include New York-based MetaProp, Agya Ventures, Debut Capital, Community Fund and Consonance Capital Partners; and Menlo Park-based Concrete Rose Capital and Lightspeed Scout Fund, an arm of Lightspeed Venture Partners, as well as angel investor Jason Calacanis’ San Francisco-based incubator Launch syndicate.
