What Telosa does

Telosa is a greenfield city-development project founded in 2021 by serial entrepreneur Marc Lore and operated through Junto Group LLC, a New York limited liability company headquartered at 305 West Broadway. The project's stated objective is to design and construct a new sustainable city in the United States - planned for up to 5 million residents on a roughly 150,000-acre footprint over a 40-year horizon, with an initial phase of 50,000 residents on 1,500 acres targeted by 2030. As of the input data, the project is in active site selection across candidate states including Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Texas, and the Appalachian region, and has not yet selected a site, broken ground, or generated revenue.\n\nThe conceptual technology and design package centers on a 'smart city' platform designed by BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) as master planner. Documented components include a 15-minute city urban design, a central Equitism Tower with photovoltaic roof and aeroponic farms, planned integration of autonomous vehicles and eVTOL aircraft (the latter via Lore's lead investment in Archer), distributed renewable energy, smart water reuse, underground transport and delivery networks, a blockchain-based e-voting system, and a real-time city infrastructure management system. The initiative is supported by engineering partner Buro Happold, real estate advisor RCLCO, and civic-analytics partner Polco.\n\nThe economic engine is the 'Equitism' model, under which all land is donated to a community endowment that captures future land-value appreciation and ground-lease income to fund public services (education, healthcare, housing, transportation) in lieu of traditional property taxes on residents. The project is funded by a mix of private investors, philanthropists, federal and state grants, economic-development subsidies, and Marc Lore's personal capital derived from prior exits (Walmart/Jet.com $3.3B sale; Quidsi $550M sale) and venture investments such as Archer. Stated funding requirements are approximately $25B for the initial phase and over $400B for full buildout; no revenue is generated today and no institutional venture or private equity round has been disclosed.

Name

Telosa

Legal name

Junto Group LLC

Website

https://cityoftelosa.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2021

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Telosa is a US greenfield city-development project founded in 2021 by Marc Lore through Junto Group LLC, designing a planned 5-million-resident sustainable city around the 'Equitism' community-endowment land model. The project is currently in multi-state site selection ahead of a 2030 first-resident target.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Planned City Development

NAICS

Land Subdivision (2372), Services to Buildings and Dwellings (5617)

SIC

Services-Social Services (8300)

akta.pro primary industry

Sustainable Cities, Urban Development & Green Infrastructure (BPADALAL)

akta.pro secondary industries

Smart Cities & Urban Innovation Programs (Digital Planning, Civic Tech for Cities) (BPAIANAJ), Community Development & Neighborhood Revitalization (CDBG, Place-Based Initiatives) (BPAIANAE), State/Provincial Housing, Urban/Regional Planning & Community Development (BPAIABAM)

Keywords

• Planned city development
• Smart urban infrastructure
• Sustainable city design
• Community land endowment
• Urban master planning

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Infrastructure, Operations, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Land Value Appreciation: As the city grows, land values increase from essentially worthless desert to billions or trillions of dollars. The community endowment owns the land and uses appreciation to fund city services.
2. Ground Lease Income: Private endowment will own and manage the land which will generate income from ground leases and appreciation to support social services in the form of education, housing, health, and transportation.
3. Private Investment: Funding from private investors, philanthropists, federal and state grants, and economic development subsidies. Marc Lore also plans to invest his own capital from startup returns including Archer investments.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Telosa is developing a 5-million-resident sustainable city from scratch in the United States under the 'Equitism' economic model, in which all land is donated to a community endowment and appreciation in land values funds public services. The project, master-planned by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), combines a 15-minute urban design, autonomous mobility, eVTOL air transport, distributed renewable energy, smart water management, blockchain-based governance, and a community endowment land-ownership structure. Residents, corporations, and partner governments are engaged through the Telosa Community Network, with the first 50,000 residents targeted for 2030.

Product overview

Telosa is a city-building initiative, not a traditional product company. It is a visionary urban development project led by entrepreneur Marc Lore, designed in partnership with BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, to create a new sustainable city from scratch in the American desert. The initiative encompasses the planning and conceptual design of a 5-million-person city based on the 'Equitism' economic model, where land is owned by a community endowment. Telosa's offering consists of the city concept itself and its associated urban planning vision, rather than a discrete product or software platform.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Equitism: An economic system in which citizens have a stake in the city's land - as the city does better, the residents do better. The economic model underpinning Telosa where land is owned by a community endowment.
• Equitism Tower
• The Junto Group
• Telosa Community Foundation

Products and services

• Telosa City

Quantifiable outcome

• Land value appreciation from near-zero to potentially $1 trillion, generating $50 billion annually for community services
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 September 2021World-renowned architecture firm led by Bjarke Ingels serving as master planner and chief architectural designer for Telosa. BIG brings expertise in sustainable design, having completed ~15 million sq ft of projects including Google headquarters and CopenHill. Ingels is known for 'pragmatic utopianism' and 'hedonistic sustainability' design philosophy.
• RCLCOminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerReal estate advisory firm providing strategic and tactical advice on property investment, planning, and development. Serves as 'first call' for real estate developers, investors, and public sector seeking strategic guidance.
• Henry George School of Social ScienceminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerEducational organization promoting Henry George's philosophies on economic justice and sustainable prosperity. George's 'Single Tax' proposal on land values inspired Telosa's Equitism model. Winston Churchill, Leo Tolstoy, John Dewey, and Albert Einstein endorsed George's proposals.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Belmont (Arizona): Bill Gates-backed master-planned community in the Arizona desert with autonomous-vehicle infrastructure and high-speed connectivity. Closest US-based peer in terms of greenfield, desert, tech-forward urban development, though smaller and earlier-stage.
• Songdo IBD: South Korea's master-planned smart city built on reclaimed land with ubiquitous sensors and digital infrastructure. Comparable as a greenfield urban-tech project targeting global livability standards, though primarily a Korean domestic play.
• Lake Nona: Tavistock Development's 17-square-mile master-planned community in Orlando featuring smart-city infrastructure, autonomous shuttles, and a wellness-tech focus. Comparable as a US-based private planned community with similar innovation-led positioning.
• The Line (NEOM): 170-km linear city component of NEOM emphasizing zero-car, zero-carbon, walkable design — directly mirrors Telosa's 15-minute city and sustainability targets, with far greater capital and political backing.
• NEOM: Saudi Arabia's $500B+ greenfield mega-city project in the Tabuk province, with parallel ambitions for sustainability, autonomous mobility, and a from-scratch urban model — directly comparable in scope and ambition to Telosa, though sovereign-funded.
• Masdar City: UAE's planned sustainable city launched in 2006 targeting zero-carbon, zero-waste operations with autonomous transit. Closest analogue to Telosa in terms of greenfield sustainability mandate, though with sovereign backing and slower-than-projected resident growth.

Others

• BOLD (Bjarke Ingels Group) — projects portfolio: BIG's broader portfolio of master-planned projects (e.g., CopenHill, Google Bay View) provides a comparable reference set for the design vocabulary and sustainability claims Telosa inherits from its master-planning partner.

Broad incumbents

• Tavistock Development Company: Lake Nona's developer and a major US land developer with deep experience building master-planned communities from raw land — comparable in private-sector land-development expertise and capital deployment scale.
• Sidewalk Labs (Alphabet): Alphabet's urban-innovation arm that developed (and ultimately wound down) a high-profile Quayside smart-city project in Toronto. Conceptually adjacent as a tech-led urbanism effort, though now largely pivoted to infrastructure software rather than city development.

Emerging players

• Culdesac: Developer of car-free, walkable neighborhoods in Tempe, AZ and other US sites. Shares Telosa's 15-minute city, pedestrian-first, and human-scale design philosophy, though at a smaller neighborhood scale rather than full city.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/CityofTelosa
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCLTkanjDOLMh_UaRY3Nf-Cg
• Facebookfacebook.com/TheRealCityOfTelosa
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/cityoftelosa
• Instagraminstagram.com/cityoftelosa

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Telosa