Melbourne construction tech business, Buildxact, has recently raised $8.5 million in order to provide residential home builders solutions to the many business challenges they commonly face.
The investment was led by Aconex co-founder Leigh Jasper, who is joining the company’s Board of Directors and taking up an advisory position as Director of Innovation.
Buildxact provides both estimations and job management services to individual renovators. While other technology companies have focused on the big end of the construction industry, Buildxact has taken a different road.
From the experience of working with the Master Builders Association of Victoria in 2010, the CEO of Buildxact, David Murray, realised that residential builders are facing equal — if not more — challenges in the industry compared with corporations.
Specifically, these pain points include:
- Tensive loss of time due to re-estimating and re-quoting on variations
- Poor management and transparency of cash flows
- A lack of work-life balance
“Residential builders lack fit-for-purpose tools and are often using spreadsheets and even paper to manage their business,” David said.
“They are in desperate need of easy-to-use technology to increase their efficiency and visibility into the business.”
David is confident that Buildxact’s proven value proposition is the key to its success in this big raise.
“Over the last five years, we have successfully executed our business strategy and our technology has been well-received by customers.
“We have a market opportunity in the billions, with more than 100,000 residential builders in Australia and a few million in the international markets.
“As such, it was a no brainer for investors to get behind the company.”
Despite its international success, going global was not initially on Buildxact’s agenda; however, with extensive market research, the company managed to identify similarities between markets in Australia and around the world.
The funds raised will be used to accelerate the growth of the business, particularly through further investment in marketing to support the business’s expansion in Canada. The company also plans to launch into the USA and the UK this year.
“The traction we’ve seen in recent years proves there is a need for our solution,” said David.
“Following the establishment of a fit for purpose product, the company has invested in sales and marketing and accelerated its revenue and subscriber growth.
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“With this injection of funds, we can increase our investment in our product to serve more of the industry, not just here but in our chosen international markets as well.”
Speaking about his investment and new position at Buildxact, Aconex co-founder Leigh Jasper said he is looking forward to stepping back into construction tech and helping the company grow in the global market.
“I’m looking forward to joining Buildxact on the next part of the journey and creating another Australian success story.”
Leigh led the round with follow-on investment from existing shareholders and the addition of strategic investors including Perennial Investment Partners, SFO Ventures and Salta Capital.
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