Mar 10, 2021

Companies such as Built Technologies, Versatile and DroneDeploy have benefited from an increase in investments in construction technology. Many construction tech startups saw fresh rounds of funding in the past few months. Investors have backed companies that are offering faster, easier technology for a wide variety of construction tasks, on and off the jobsite. The trend began before the pandemic, but continued as contractors found themselves scrambling to keep jobsites working. As early as August, New York City-based venture tracking firm CB Insights predicted funding for construction-related technology startups would hit $1.3 billion in 2020 , a 56% year-over-year increase from 2019. Here’s a look at the contech startups that received funding in the past few months: Built Technologies Construction finance platform Built Technologies , which has helped fund $68 billion worth of construction projects across 130,000 commercial, homebuilder, land development and consumer deals, raised $88 million in a new funding round in February. The Nashville, Tennessee-based company announced its Series C funding round, led by Peloton and SurveyMonkey investor Lee Fixel. Other backers included fintech-focused Canapi Ventures, Index Ventures and Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, among others. Since its founding in 2015, Built has raised more than $137 million. The new funds will be used to expand the Built for Lending product suite and accelerate go-to-market efforts to serve more construction lenders in the U.S. and Canada, according to a news release . DroneDeploy DroneDeploy raised $50 million in Series E financing, according to a February news release . The round was led by existing investors Energize Ventures and AirTree, and included participation from Bessemer, Scale, Emergence, Angelpad, Uncork and Frontline Ventures. The new round brought the drone data company’s total funds raised to $142 million, the most of any drone data company, according to the release. The funding will be utilized to expand DroneDeploy's products, accelerate expansion into Europe and explore opportunities for acquisitions. San Francisco-based DroneDeploy uses drones and ground-level cameras to collect and analyze visual data for companies across many sectors. The startup has seen 259% annual growth in enterprise use in 2020, according to its announcement, and an increase in adoption from Fortune 500 companies in many areas, including engineering. GoContractor Dublin, Ireland-based GoContractor raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Boston-based Building Ventures and Ironspring in the U.S., with participation from existing investors, according to a February news release . The funding will allow the startup to further scale across U.S. and European markets to grow sales, support and marketing teams and increase investment in its research. GoContractor is a worker and subcontractor onboarding and data management solution. The process of onboarding new workers and subcontractors is usually done manually and in-person, requiring hours of classroom training, documentation and orientation. GoContractor moves the process online, as a means of enabling workers and subcontractors to arrive at the jobsite with documentation finished beforehand. Matrak Construction tech startup Matrak received $5.85 million in funding late January from Leigh Jasper, cofounder of cloud software firm Aconex, and venture capital fund Rampersand, according to the Sunday Morning Herald . The Series A round valued the startup at $30 million. Matrak was founded in 2017 by brothers Shane and Brett Hodgkins in Melbourne, Australia, when they learned about the lack of information concerning when supplies were due to arrive at their father’s construction company. They devised Matrak as a tracking network that provides end-to-end supply chain information for contractors. It is in use in more than 140 projects across Australia, Asia, the United Kingdom and the U.S., and the startup will use the new funding to expand sales and marketing in Europe and Asia, the Sunday Morning Herald reported. Soil Connect Soil Connect, a digital marketplace for the soil and aggregates industry, received $3.25 million in seed funding in December, according to an official release . The round was led by TIA Ventures, and included investments from various firms, including CEMEX Ventures and Bazella Contracting. The Plainview, New York-based startup also launched an e-ticketing service to help transform the transport and management of soil and aggregates — addressing flaws in the manual paper system. The funding came shortly after Soil Connect announced a series of strategic hires. The startup will use the proceeds to continue its team growth and to introduce new enhancements to its platform. Swapp Tel Aviv, Israel-based artificial intelligence-powered construction planning company Swapp announced in January that it had raised $7 million in seed funding, led by Point 72 Ventures and Entree Capital, along with previously participating investors. Swapp’s platform generates and optimizes design options supporting the coordination of structural plans, producing detailed construction drawings and plans according to customers’ needs. The investment supported Swapp’s continued market expansion efforts for its construction platform and AI capabilities. TraceAir In January, Redwood City, California-based TraceAir, a construction site development platform that uses drones to develop 3D maps of construction projects, announced it had completed a $35 million Series A funding round from an international pool of investors. With the company’s seed investment, the new funding brought the total TraceAir has raised to $7 million. The newest capital will be used to grow marketing and sales and accelerate new product features. Versatile In early December, Los Altos, California-based Versatile announced $20 million in Series A funding, in a round led by Insight Partners and Entree Capital, joined by previous investors. Versatile is the developer of machine learning and AI service CraneView , which optimizes the construction process via data captured from a camera mounted at the bottom of a jobsites crane hook.