Exclusive: Martha Stewart’s new AI startup wants to manage your home before things break

It all began at Easter brunch on her farm, the place Stewart met Kyle Rush—her neighbor and an AI engineer—and realized he was describing what she says she’d imagined for years: software program that notices the leaky ceiling, expiring insurance coverage coverage, or too-high utility bills before the home-owner does.

That concept is now Hint, an AI home management startup cofounded by Stewart, home-services veteran Yih-Han Ma, and chief know-how officer Rush. The firm raised $10 million in seed funding led by Slow Ventures, Fortune discovered solely. Montauk Capital (who incubated the corporate), Tusk Venture Partners, Amplo, Energy Impact Partners, Hannah Grey, and Brian Kelly, the founding father of The Points Guyadditionally participated. Hint will launch on desktop and iOS this summer season.

Hint’s pitch is that homeowners do not want one other market, guidelines, or chatbot. The setup is disarmingly easy. “The first thing you do is give us your address,” Ma advised Fortune. “That’s it.” From there, the app pulls public knowledge on the property, climate, soil, air high quality, listings, and different alerts. Users may add inspection stories, warranties, payments, and insurance coverage insurance policies. Hint then builds a working file of the home’s historical past and desires. The sensible snapshot is the sort of recommendation most householders possible by no means assume to search for or keep in mind intuitively. It can inform a Texas home-owner to water a basis before clay soil and a sizzling summer season trigger injury, remind somebody to store for insurance coverage before the renewal date, or inform them when an issue is not value calling a contractor.

The market is gigantic and fragmented. A 2025 Harvard housing research reported that Americans spend greater than $500 billion a 12 months on residential renovations and repairs. Meanwhile, Angi’s 2025 home spending survey found 62% of house owners had been extra apprehensive about affording upkeep than they had been the 12 months prior.

While established platforms like Angi and Thumbtack have skilled customers to discover native execs; Hint is betting probably the most invaluable place is getting to owners before they ever want to search. Other venture-backed startups have circled the identical drawback. Honey Homes raised a $9.25 million Series A-1 in 2024 for a membership mannequin constructed round devoted handypeople, whereas Birdwatch raised $3.2 million in seed funding for an “autopilot” method to home care that very same 12 months. Both depend on human labor.

Hint’s argument is that AI can sidestep the price entice that has squeezed concierge-style home companies at scale. “I’ve seen a lot of concierge and home management startups force their way through fragmentation with armies of coordinators and white-glove service,” Kevin Colleran, cofounder and managing director at Slow Ventures, advised Fortune. “That’s where the economics fail at scale. Hint uses AI to bend the curve the other way. The more Hint learns about your home, the more the system can do without human intervention.”

For Colleran, the funding case begins with a easy nervousness. “I own this incredibly valuable asset and I have no idea if I’m taking care of it correctly,” he defined.

Stewart’s fingerprints are discovered all through Hint, on the title, the app’s visible language, and even the emblem’s shade of inexperienced—chosen to match the eggs from her farm. She has examined Hint’s outputs in real-life conditions on her property and written guides the product pulls from straight.

“I’ve wanted to create something beyond education, something that could actually help proactively manage one’s home the way that I do—but the technology wasn’t ready for my vision. Hint is,” Stewart advised Fortune.

The arduous query is incentives. When Hint connects customers with services or products, it could earn affiliate or transaction charges—a setup that has quietly compromised the independence of numerous “unbiased” shopper platforms before it. Colleran stated he pushed arduous on this level before committing. “Once your bottom line depends on referral fees and take-rates, it becomes very hard to resist nudging people toward whoever pays you the most,” Colleran advised Fortune. His reply, and Hint’s said precept: The platform’s suggestions are blind to industrial offers. For a startup promising to be “100% on the side of the homeowner,” that is not merely a footnote. It’s the entire guess.