As companies turn to technology to add efficiency during the pandemic, Atlanta-based cove.tool’s software has stood out among builders.
CEO and co-founder Sandeep Ahuja said cove.tool saw a 20% month-over-month growth in sales during 2020.
The company produces software that shows builders the cheapest products they can use to make a structure more energy efficient — either to bring the building up to local code or to make it more sustainable.
"It'll tell you exactly what products to spend money on, which shows the absolute cheapest way for me to hit my targets — whether they’re basic, like getting to code, or more ambitious, like getting to carbon positivity,” Ahuja said.
Ahuja founded the company in 2018 with co-founders Patrick Chopson and Daniel Chopson because she saw builders and developers needed a cheaper way to make buildings more energy efficient instead of turning to costly consultants.
“It automates the process," said Ahuja, who used to work as one of those consultants. “Instead of having to pay someone $30,000-$50,000, we’re democratizing it so that every team can have access to data early on instead of just once in the building cycle.”
The cove.tool software knows the different codes in different localities and keeps up to date with changes. The software has about 6,000 users across 22 countries, though most are in the U.S., Ahuja said.
While remote work has altered the construction landscape, Ahuja said she isn’t worried about cove.tool becoming less useful. The company analyzed trends and saw a 2% decrease in office buildings, but a 2% increase in university buildings, according to its report.
“We’re able to track exactly what the industry is suggesting and roll that back into our marketing efforts,” Ahuja said. “We’re not limited to a building type, so we’re able to stay pretty busy and continue to grow.”
In 2020, cove.tool launched a Covid-19 assessment tool, which allowed architects and owners to test how safe employees would be if they returned to work depending on the different floor plans.
Cove.tool raised a $5.7 million Series A round led by Mucker Capital in September to fuel its growth, which Ahuja said didn’t slow down, despite the pandemic. Atlanta-based TechSquare Labs, founded by local entrepreneur and investor Paul Judge, also invests in cove.tool.
Cove.tool grew from 11 to 25 employees in the past year, and Ahuja said the startup hopes to grow to 50 by the end of 2021, adding mostly sales and marketing employees.
In the next year, Ahuja said the startup will launch some updates for its manufacturing partners to expand cove.tool’s product marketplaces. Manufacturers sell products on cove.tool based on the software’s recommendations to developers.
Ahuja said she always knew she wanted to be an entrepreneur but didn’t expect she would turn to software to do so.
“This just ended up being the solution to the problem I was trying to solve,” Ahuja said. “This is the best way to do it.”
