A cold email is an odd foundation for a housing business. You cannot live in one, mortgage one or persuade a contractor to put a roof on it. Yet one of Jerónimo Uribe’s consequential early moves at La Haus was to write to Pete Flint, the cofounder of Trulia. Flint later recalled a founder whose idea had grown out of a Stanford class project about online real estate in South America. Uribe had found someone who understood how much work could be hiding behind a property search box.
By the time NFX first invested, La Haus had already completed more than 100 transactions. That detail matters. A house listing can look persuasive on a screen while the business behind it remains hypothetical. A completed sale has survived questions, hesitation and paperwork. Uribe was approaching an investor with evidence that people would follow the process all the way through.
His career since then has kept circling the space between an expression of interest and an actual decision. First came buildings. Then a marketplace. Now LaHaus offers AI tools that answer prospects and arrange appointments. The scenery changes; the unanswered question keeps ringing.
The economist with an impression up his sleeve
Uribe comes with a surname that reaches the room before he does. He is the younger son of former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe and Lina Moreno, and the brother of businessman Tomás Uribe. His public life has long included the scrutiny that accompanies that family. His commercial biography begins with an education in economics at Universidad de los Andes, where he graduated in 2006.
He had initially studied electronic engineering before changing direction. As he explained years later, economic questions had interested him since childhood. The adult combination is rather useful for his eventual business: curiosity about how markets behave, with some early attraction to the machinery that might change them.
He also has a less solemn talent. During a joint interview with Tomás in 2013, Jerónimo mimicked George W. Bush’s walk and handshake. The brothers recalled meeting Hugo Chávez, who approved of Tomás’s chemical engineering and reacted rather differently to Jerónimo’s economics. A diplomatic encounter had become material for an impression. It is a small, revealing scene: a presidential son who could also notice the comedy in presidential company.
“Soy Jerónimo.”
Jerónimo Uribe, 2007
That brief assertion, made when his father was president, is a useful way into the profile. Family is part of the story. So is the individual trying to have a conversation under his own name.
Two brothers, one working arrangement
Tomás and Jerónimo made an arrangement to take turns managing their businesses so that each could pursue an MBA. Jerónimo’s Stanford Graduate School of Business studies ran from 2012 to 2014. The arrangement required something more practical than brotherly affection: each had to let the other leave, and each had to keep the work moving.
Years later, Tomás described their working relationship as a division of responsibilities. Jerónimo ran La Haus; Tomás handled other interests, including shopping-center development. When a problem resisted a solution, they acted as sparring partners, talking it through together. It is an appealing description of family enterprise because it leaves room for disagreement. The useful brother is the one who can challenge your thinking.
Tomás also supplied a character reference with fewer financial terms. Jerónimo, he said, danced better, cracked jokes and was more talkative. Anyone can commission a corporate biography. A brother’s assessment tends to arrive with a different editing policy.
The building business taught him where buyers got stuck
At Stanford, Uribe met Rodrigo Sánchez-Ríos. Their work on Jaguar Capital, a Colombian property investment and development business, preceded La Haus. By 2020, Sánchez-Ríos described more than $350 million in residential, retail and industrial assets developed through Jaguar. That was an education conducted in projects rather than case studies.
Inside that business, the team encountered a sales process that relied heavily on intuition. Developers priced against comparable properties and guessed the speed at which units would sell. Santiago García built technology and databases for investment due diligence. The founders began to see another use for those tools: helping people decide which home to buy.
The step from developer to marketplace grew out of that practical problem. A database useful to an investment committee could also help a buyer asking whether a property was available, what it cost and whether the information could be trusted. The same facts had different audiences.
A marketplace has to earn the next click
La Haus spun out in April 2017. Uribe recalled beginning with two engineers and two sales representatives. The original business joined property supply with potential buyers, then used specialized agents to help carry the process through to a completed transaction. Its commission depended on the sale happening.
His diagnosis was specific: unclear prices, poor listings, inconsistent service and difficulty getting financing. In 2020, he estimated that 60 percent of online requests for property information went unanswered. Treat that as his estimate at the time. Even with that qualification, it explains the opportunity he saw. A buyer could make the first move and receive silence in return.
The small initial team also says something about the design. Engineering and sales stood next to each other from the beginning. A more attractive search experience would have limited value if nobody could answer the buyer’s questions. Conversely, a helpful representative needed reliable information. The product had to make both sides work together.
The advantage he acknowledged
The cold email makes a good opening, but it would be misleading to turn Uribe’s career into a tale of starting without resources. He has said so himself. Early experiments drew on cash generated by the development business. Friends and family helped finance the company after it separated.
“I am a very privileged Colombian,” he said in 2020, discussing his connections. He also pointed to the difficulty other founders faced in attracting experienced people and meeting investors abroad. His observation places the familiar startup story on firmer ground. An idea needs testing; testing costs money; knowing people who can supply it changes the available choices.
That admission belongs alongside the transactions. Connections can open a meeting. The operating business still has to provide something people will use. In Uribe’s case, the interesting question is how experience, access and execution combined, rather than which single ingredient deserves the entire credit.
When the investor list got crowded
In March 2021, Uribe, Sánchez-Ríos and García joined Endeavor’s global entrepreneur network. Later that year, La Haus attracted a funding extension with names that made business-page readers look twice: Bezos Expeditions, Marc Benioff’s TIME Ventures, Rappi cofounder Simón Borrero and Maluma were among the participants.
The July financing comprised $50 million in equity and $50 million in debt. Acrew Capital and Renegade Partners co-led it. The distinction is worth preserving: debt and equity do different jobs, and a financing headline is a poor substitute for understanding either. The company’s plans included using transaction data to help extend financing to developers and buyers.
Those ambitions reached beyond choosing an apartment online. If smaller developers struggled to finance construction, a better sales channel could only solve part of the problem. Uribe’s business was approaching the relationship between homes that people wanted and homes that builders could afford to deliver.
Equal amounts, different obligations. Historical financing, not revenue or personal wealth.
The city outside the spreadsheet
La Haus also worked with researchers at MIT on housing questions in Mexico and Colombia. At a 2022 presentation of initial findings, Uribe argued for accessible housing that answered people’s needs. He described the research as a starting point for policy and action, including better use of urban land.
This widened the frame around his company. Housing involves the supply of buildings as well as the circulation of listings. Research into the shortage asks questions that a transaction platform, however convenient, cannot settle alone: where construction can happen, how cities accommodate households and what makes a home accessible.
There is an understandable tension here. A founder needs a product narrow enough to operate. The social problem keeps spilling over its edges. Following Uribe’s career means watching him move between those scales: the individual buyer’s unanswered request and the city’s need for more places to live.
A seller of homes who hesitates to give an easy answer
In August 2024, Uribe published an essay on buying versus renting. Its opening was unexpectedly cautious for someone whose company sold homes: he felt nervous when people asked him what to do. The answer, he argued, depended on their circumstances.
He focused on behavior as well as arithmetic. A comparison could assume that a renter invested every bit of the money saved, month after month. Actual households might behave differently. He also discussed the satisfaction people derive from ownership, which a financial model struggles to capture. He did not conclude that everyone should buy.
The essay shows an economist interested in the person who has to live with the calculation. It also deserves to be read with his commercial interest in view. Uribe is a participant in the housing market, making an argument about it. The useful part is the question he raises: how much of an elegant projection depends on habits its author has simply assumed?
The next conversation lasts longer than a chatbot demo
By October 2025, Uribe was discussing further AI investment, possible entry into additional Latin American markets and a focus on profitability. These were stated plans. Today LaHaus AI promotes acquisition, qualification, follow-up and appointment scheduling for real estate teams, including renewed contact with existing prospect databases.
In February 2026, Uribe explained why residential property was a demanding setting for an AI assistant. A purchase could take months or years, with conversations moving among WhatsApp, websites, email and calls. He emphasized long-term memory, communication across channels and clear limits that bring a human into the process when needed.
It is a more exacting brief than producing a fluent answer. The assistant must remember what matters and recognize when to stop. The founder who once assembled engineers and salespeople is still working at their meeting point. The email that reached Pete Flint began a business relationship; the present product asks how to sustain thousands of relationships without letting the buyer disappear between messages. For Uribe, the next appointment is another attempt to close that distance.