Our Story
Creating a sustainable future for the built environment.
Unbuilt was formed in 2020 to address a problem co-founder Sara Noyes saw on nearly every construction project: leftover materials piling up on site with nowhere to go. As a project manager on luxury home remodels in Southern California, she knew that with deadlines close and nowhere to store or donate them, those materials often went in the dumpster, despite being new, valuable and beautiful.
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Sara started calling friends and contacts to find them a second home. After a few deals, the pattern was clear: the owner, the builder and the buyer all came out ahead. She reached out to longtime friend Matt Kennedy, a college classmate, entrepreneur and fellow Angeleno. Matt had recently designed consumer applications at Apple and Netflix, and grew up around his family’s resale apparel store in Texas.
Sara and Matt started small, visiting job sites, showrooms and storage sheds with a U-Haul truck. They met with designers, builders and homeowners, picking up valuable, new-condition materials and filling Matt’s living room and garage. By identifying, photographing, researching, listing, selling, packing, shipping and delivering everything by hand, they learned what it would take to build the Unbuilt platform.
They upgraded to a storage facility, and later a warehouse in Gardena. During the pandemic, Unbuilt became a go-to source for getting around supply chain delays, delivering windows, flooring and fixtures in days, not months. In 2023, the company was one of 12 selected from over 1,000 applicants for the inaugural Techstars Future of Ecommerce Accelerator, backed by eBay.
In response to the 2025 LA Fires, Unbuilt opened its marketplace to the public, with free listings and direct connections between buyers and sellers.