San Francisco-based Construction billing platform Siteline says it raised $15 million Series A funding on Feb. 25, led by Menlo Ventures with participation from existing investors. Menlo Ventures partner Tyler Sosin will join Siteline’s Board of Directors.
The round comes on the heels of the company’s previously unannounced $3.4 million seed round led by First Round Capital and Brick & Mortar Ventures, with participation from Designer Fund, South Park Commons Fund, and a number of other angels. Dustin DeVan, founder of BuildingConnected, will become a company advisor. Siteline has raised a total of $18.4 million to date and will use the new funding to expand its sales, marketing, recruiting, engineering, and product teams.
One of the largest industries in the world, construction is also the slowest-paying. According to PwC, the median time to get paid in construction is 90 days, putting the sector in last place behind pharmaceuticals and life sciences. This is especially painful for trade contractors, who typically pay for labor and materials out of pocket before getting paid months later. As construction is one of the least digitized industries in the world, the status quo for billing is a manual, fragmented process that hasn’t changed in decades, and a single misplaced cent can cause a delay in payments, further exacerbating the pain.
Tyler Sosin, who led the Siteline investment on behalf of Menlo Ventures, is an active investor in construction technology. “Financial fragility remains one of the biggest unsolved problems for this industry,” he said. “Construction is a sprawling, complex business pressured by working capital issues and significant counterparty risks. The workforce needs better tools and processes to manage business financials and liquidity, ensuring more stability across the system. By solving the payments problem for subcontractors – arguably the largest segment of the construction workforce – Siteline addresses a critical issue for a large population serving a multi-trillion dollar industry.”
Siteline is the first financial platform built specifically for trade contractors from the ground up. Trade contractors can easily compile accurate payment applications, manage compliance documents, and monitor payment status on one customizable platform. Siteline’s customers get paid faster, accelerate internal billing processes by up to 6X, and improve collaboration across project and finance teams.
“Getting paid in construction is a huge hassle, and that makes cash flow harder to manage,” Gloria Lin, Siteline’s CEO and co-founder, said in a statement. “Growing up with a dad in construction, I’ve seen some of the industry’s challenges and opportunities firsthand. That’s why our mission is to help contractors focus on building, not billing. Ultimately, we want to empower builders to make better business decisions, by transforming a painful payments process into a powerhouse of financial data.”
The company says it currently processes more than $180 million in annualized billing for its customers, including projects ranging from office campuses and schools to major airport terminals and hospital wings. It supports hundreds of projects across the US, the statement says.
“Siteline takes us to the next level,” said Jeff Scalisi, vice-president of operations at Architectural Glass & Aluminum. “As a growing company, we need to constantly evolve the way we are doing things. Siteline brings the whole team together around billing and payments. And what used to take days or weeks, now takes hours.”
“We are pleased to be an investor in Siteline, as they continue to build the tools needed to help trade contractors get paid faster and more easily by simplifying and automating critical financial operations,” said Darren Bechtel, founder and managing director at Brick & Mortar Ventures. “Gloria and her team are building a best-in-class solution to simplify construction finance workflows, and we look forward to supporting their continued expansion and growth.”
