Houzz is an American website, online community and software for architecture; interior design and decorating; landscape design and home improvement. It was founded in 2009 and is based in Palo Alto, California. History Houzz was founded as an online platform in February 2009 by Adi Tatarko and her husband Alon Cohen, in response to the challenges they faced with their own home remodeling project. They found it difficult to communicate their vision for their home, and to find the right professionals for their project. Cohen coded the initial website himself, and they asked a few Bay Area architects to upload their portfolios, to give home renovators ideas for their projects. The site spread by word-of-mouth and they began to receive emails from homeowners and home professionals outside the Bay Area asking them to open more categories on Houzz and expand to other areas. Houzz became a company in the fall of 2010. In November 2010, Houzz released an app for the iPad. The Android version of the app was released in December 2012. In July 2013, Houzz introduced the Real Cost Finder, an interactive tool that helps users plan home renovations and total costs. The tool is based on data collected from the Houzz community. In January 2014, Houzz announced that it had opened offices and hired local managers in the UK, Germany and Australia to accelerate its global expansion; 35% of the company's site traffic already came from outside the U.S. In February, Houzz launched Site Designer, a free website building and publishing tool for home professionals. In December, Houzz announced its expansion to the rest of Europe and into Asia, starting with Japan. It was reported that the Houzz database contained millions of images of home interiors and exteriors. In May 2015, Houzz introduced HouzzTV, showing homeowners' projects using design professionals. In August, Houzz made its first acquisition, acquiring gardening and home advice site GardenWeb from NBCUniversal. In October, Houzz settled a privacy violation lawsuit for not providing the standard recorded notification that customers' and professionals' calls were being recorded for quality and training purposes. In January 2016, Houzz introduced Sketch for Android. In February, Houzz introduced View in My Room within its app for iOS and Android that lets users virtually place products from the Houzz Marketplace in their homes before buying. In March, Houzz announced that it had opened its Commerce API to third party partners,