Investment Notes: Sitemate

We are proud to have led a funding round into Sitemate, a startup we first met through the Startmate Accelerator back in 2017. 

Read on to learn how our conviction in Sitemate has grown over the years and why they’re just getting started on tackling a thorny, widespread problem for the entire built world - construction, energy, utilities and manufacturing.

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Our Ecosystem at Work 

‍Hartley Pike grew up working at his father’s small construction company before becoming a civil and structural engineer working on building large scale public infrastructure projects. 🧑‍🏭

A couple of years in and he realised there was a massive industry-wide problem… 

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At least 20% of his week involved completing mindless, manual paperwork and keeping track of physical documentation. It was cause for immense frustration 😤 and he decided to try to fix it.

At Blackbird, we often talk about founders “doing their life’s work”. This is what we mean. Hartley took the photos above on his final day of work on the job to be a constant reminder of the problem he set out to solve.

In 2017, two “mates” came together when Sitemate participated in Startmate, the inaugural year of our Partner Nick Crocker’s tenure as CEO! ❤️ Through Startmate, Blackbird participated in the company’s pre-seed round, and  Rory San Miguel, CEO and cofounder of Propeller (also a Blackbird construction portfolio company!), became a close mentor of the team.

Now, almost five years later, in a beautiful example of how our network and community at Blackbird works side by side with the Startmate circle of life, we are so proud to double down and lead the company’s Seed round. 💰

So, what did we love about Sitemate?... 

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“Collaboration for the built world” 🚧

Just like Atlassian’s Jira unlocks collaboration for engineering teams and Asana unlocks collaboration for teams, Sitemate “unlocks collaboration for the built world” (industrial verticals from utilities to maritime). The team believes in a future where built-world companies operate like technology companies do today, and where bridges, buildings and roads can be built faster than software.

Sitemate’s first product was Dashpivot, a no code platform allowing companies in the built world to digitise their processes at rapid speed and low cost. Dashpivot offers a suite of building blocks that can be adapted from the smallest of teams, to the largest of global infrastructure projects.Features such as site electronic scanning on and off documentation, electronic signature driven kanban workflows, advanced formulas and layers of conditional logic, are all fundamental tools that people in the built world are using to build on Dashpivot.

In response to COVID-19 🦠, Sitemate built and launched their second product in 6 weeks - the Sitemate app. This consumer-like app is the individual site worker interface that interacts with Dashpivot’s tooling - eg. workers might use the app to complete required documentation, sign forms, scan digital ID cards, etc.

Sitemate’s product roadmap is crystal clear, and the scale of the ambition for their documented product vision around tooling in the built world is equally as exciting as it is daunting.

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Cofounders “unhatched” 🐣

Building a business is never easy and co-founders Hartley and Sam have had their fair share of challenging times. Putting aside their age and being a first time founders, they also navigated a cofounder departure early in the company’s life. Their ability to work through that is testament to their fortitude.

Sitemate is embedded with a deep passion for design, balance and architectural thinking - together they are a powerful and dynamic duo. These are the gritty, hungry, focused, capital efficient, “get-your-hands dirty” founders we love to back at Blackbird.

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Industrial referral loops 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

COVID was a catalyst of demand for the Sitemate app. And the beauty of the Sitemate app is that it has naturally embedded network effects: customers sign up for Dashpivot, they invite all site workers and subcontractors onto the Sitemate app, those teams and subcontractors then get exposure to Dashpivot themselves, and so on…

In addition, Sitemate has managed to crack the top of the funnel in an extremely efficient way. Their website lands a huge volume of visitors each month, triggering a top of funnel lead-nurturing model we might see more familiar in consumer oriented companies.

At Blackbird, we love product-led growth 👍

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SaaSifying Construction 🚅

Construction technology hit the limelight after a popular 2015 McKinsey study acknowledged it as the second least digitised industry globally -

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But while full of promise, construction technology has been notoriously hard to crack. It takes very different techniques to target and engage field workers than it does desk workers. Sitemate has figured out a strategy to bring the best practices of SaaS to the space.

We are excited to be part of the Sitemate journey. With this raise, Sitemate has some big goals: it’s launching international teams, building new products, and continuing to aggressively grow. And to do that, they’ll need the help of more amazing people - so if you’re interested in no code tooling, blending consumer and saas products, and the built world -  learn more and view open roles here.

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Tom 😊, on behalf of Blackbird 

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