Procore Technologies raises $15M from Bessemer
Carpinteria-based Procore Technologies, a company that makes cloud-based construction management software, has raised $15 million from the same Silicon Valley investors that have backed Yelp, LinkedIn and Skype.
Procore was founded in 2003 by tech entrepreneur Tooey Courtemanche, who moved from Silicon Valley to Santa Barbara and was shocked by the pencil-and-paper process of managing the construction of his new home on the South Coast. He wrote a quick piece of code that turned into a company that now has 120 employees. Procore had 302 percent revenue growth to $4.8 million between 2009 and 2012 and made the Inc. 5000.
The company raised $15 million from Bessemer Venture Partners, which has $4 billion under management and also recently invested in San Luis Obispo-based Mindbody. As part of the deal, Bessemer partner Brian Feinstein will join Procore’s board.
Procore’s software lets construction professionals collaborate on projects from Internet-connected devices by keeping all the drawings, contracts and documents in one central place and synced up.
“It seemed like there should be a central hub for all this,” Courtemanche told the Business Times in 2012 about his original idea for the company. “I just realized software could make this so much more efficient.”
Procore has been in the cloud since 2003, before it was even really called the cloud, and has cultivated a huge customer base by offering different levels of its product at prices that both small and large construction firms can afford.
“The most successful vertical-focused software companies are run by entrepreneurs who spend years working to address the specific needs of their customers. Procore’s founders fit this model perfectly,” Bessemer’s Feinstein said in a statement. “We studied every software solution in the construction industry. It was clear to us that Procore had the leading cloud-based product for general contractors and facility owners to manage their projects.”
Procore said the funding was a Series D round. Earlier investors include Santa Barbara-based Persistence Partners, a fund formerly known as Great Pacific that includes as partners Fastclick veterans Dave Gross and Rusty Reed and Invoca co-founder Jason Spievak. It invested in Procore in late 2006.
