Kitchener-Waterloo-based Bridgit, which offers a project management platform for construction businesses, has raised $9.4 million CAD in funding, bringing its total amount of equity financing to date to $21.2 million.
“Tracking people during COVID was that much more of a priority for companies, and we saw that reflected within the usage of our product.”
The investment was led by construction and engineering software firm Autodesk, with participation from Export Development Canada and existing investors, including the Business Development Bank of Canada, Salesforce Ventures, Sands Capital, and StandUp Ventures. Bridgit will use this funding to add new partner integrations and build more advanced features for its Bridgit Bench offering, in order to help contractors better understand their workforce utilization and resource planning.
While Bridgit’s last round of financing was classified as a $6.2 million Series A round, Mallorie Brodie, CEO and co-founder of Bridgit, told BetaKit the company is classifying this financing not as the startup’s Series B, but as a “strategic investment.” Brodie added that the company is not in the process of raising Series B financing.
“We’re really defining [a strategic investor] as an investment partner that is able to really push the overall strategy and mission of Bridgit forward, within the construction space specifically,” Brodie told BetaKit. “Given that Autodesk has customers in the architecture, engineering, and construction space, we have a lot of shared customers, and we both feel that there’s a mutual benefit to working together and partnering on initiatives together in the future.”
Bridgit was founded in 2017 by Brodie and Lauren Lake, who have both been named on the 2019 Forbes Manufacturing and Industry 30 Under 30. The company’s solutions are targeted toward general contractors, engineering firms, and real-estate developers in North America.
Bridgit’s flagship solution, Bridgit Bench, which launched last year, helps users manage workforce utilization and capacity, resource allocation, skills tracking, and employee scheduling, and is aimed to replace the use of spreadsheets.
Brodie said a priority for the company following the recent funding will be to streamline solutions on the Bench platform, and to ensure Bench users understand project requirements and hiring needs. The $9.4 million in financing comes as the startup reports a 72 percent increase in usage of its Bench platform since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CEO added that as with many other sectors ripe for disruption, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the construction industry’s eagerness to adopt new tools.
Brodie claimed that Bridgit was able to triple its monthly recurring revenue, hire in two positions, and secure new customers during the pandemic.
“Resource planning and workforce planning is one of those workflows within the construction industry that is difficult to track at the best of times. Throughout COVID, there are potential project delays, there are certain people that need to be on the job site, or that need to be at a different job site, there are maybe people that need to quarantine, that can’t go to the job site,” Brodie told BetaKit. “So tracking people during COVID was that much more of a priority for companies, and we saw that reflected within the usage of our product.”
In addition to the increased usage of its Bench platform, the CEO claimed Bridgit tripled its monthly recurring revenue, hired two new employees, and secured new customers during the pandemic.
Bridgit is now ahead of its original forecast for this fiscal year, Brodie claimed, adding that this growth for the startup is a reflection of how the construction industry has been impacted by the pandemic.
“In terms of the construction market, it was, in most geographies, deemed as an essential service throughout most of the pandemic to date,” Brodie said. “We were seeing various [project] shutdowns in certain cities or certain provinces and states for a very short amount of time, but in general, it was an industry that continued to move forward.”
Last year, when Bridgit opened its first satellite office in Toronto, Brodie and Lake told BetaKit a focus for 2020 would be to expand to new geographic markets within Canada, as well as in the United States and Europe.
Given the current pandemic and restrictions on travel, Brodie said Bridgit has deferred its global expansion initiatives, but noted that she believes the new strategic investment from multinational organization Autodesk, will help accelerate Bridgit’s expansion efforts when the time is right to enter new markets.
Bridgit first connected with Autodesk more than four years ago. In 2018, Autodesk acquired a company called BuildingConnected, a fellow construction software startup. Brodie said the acquisition, which took place around the same time Bridgit launched Bench, led to more conversations between Bridgit and Autodesk.
The Bridgit CEO added that she has noticed over the last few years, more venture capital has been deployed into the construction tech sector, and adoption has been increasing with the emergence of new technologies.
“As new platforms are introduced to construction and as we continue to build on our platform, there will be an even wider acceptance and excitement around those tools, because [they give] companies more flexibility to access important information from wherever they are,” Brodie added.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was higher in late-morning trading, helped by strength in energy stocks, while U.S. stock markets also moved up.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 34.91 points at 23,736.98.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 178.05 points at 41,800.13. The S&P 500 index was up 28.38 points at 5,661.47, while the Nasdaq composite was up 133.17 points at 17,725.30.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.56 cents US compared with 73.57 cents US on Monday.
The November crude oil contract was up 68 cents at US$69.70 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up three cents at US$2.40 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$7.80 at US$2,601.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$4.28 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
TORONTO – Strength in the base metal and technology sectors helped Canada’s main stock index gain almost 100 points on Friday, while U.S. stock markets climbed to their best week of the year.
“It’s been almost a complete opposite or retracement of what we saw last week,” said Philip Petursson, chief investment strategist at IG Wealth Management.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 297.01 points at 41,393.78. The S&P 500 index was up 30.26 points at 5,626.02, while the Nasdaq composite was up 114.30 points at 17,683.98.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 93.51 points at 23,568.65.
While last week saw a “healthy” pullback on weaker economic data, this week investors appeared to be buying the dip and hoping the central bank “comes to the rescue,” said Petursson.
Next week, the U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut its key interest rate for the first time in several years after it significantly hiked it to fight inflation.
But the magnitude of that first cut has been the subject of debate, and the market appears split on whether the cut will be a quarter of a percentage point or a larger half-point reduction.
Petursson thinks it’s clear the smaller cut is coming. Economic data recently hasn’t been great, but it hasn’t been that bad either, he said — and inflation may have come down significantly, but it’s not defeated just yet.
“I think they’re going to be very steady,” he said, with one small cut at each of their three decisions scheduled for the rest of 2024, and more into 2025.
“I don’t think there’s a sense of urgency on the part of the Fed that they have to do something immediately.
A larger cut could also send the wrong message to the markets, added Petursson: that the Fed made a mistake in waiting this long to cut, or that it’s seeing concerning signs in the economy.
It would also be “counter to what they’ve signaled,” he said.
More important than the cut — other than the new tone it sets — will be what Fed chair Jerome Powell has to say, according to Petursson.
“That’s going to be more important than the size of the cut itself,” he said.
In Canada, where the central bank has already cut three times, Petursson expects two more before the year is through.
“Here, the labour situation is worse than what we see in the United States,” he said.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.61 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down 32 cents at US$68.65 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down five cents at US$2.31 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$30.10 at US$2,610.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents US$4.24 a pound.
— With files from The Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was down more than 200 points in late-morning trading, weighed down by losses in the technology, base metal and energy sectors, while U.S. stock markets also fell.
The S&P/TSX composite index was down 239.24 points at 22,749.04.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 312.36 points at 40,443.39. The S&P 500 index was down 80.94 points at 5,422.47, while the Nasdaq composite was down 380.17 points at 16,747.49.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.80 cents US compared with 74.00 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down US$1.07 at US$68.08 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up less than a penny at US$2.26 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$2.10 at US$2,541.00 an ounce and the December copper contract was down four cents at US$4.10 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.
