It’s easy enough to recognize how digital tools might support blue-collar industries.
But the real work – in building relationships with those companies, in getting buy-in from drivers and laborers, and in building tools that have a practical day-to-day use – requires someone who knows the terrain.
Enter Carley Hill, the leader of Clarence-based startup Cahill Tech, a software-as-a-service startup that targets the construction industry.
Hill recognized the market opportunity after growing up in her family’s West Seneca-based business, Union Concrete and Construction Co.
Cahill launched in 2019 with its flagship app, aQuiRe, a companywide safety and training platform for the construction industry. During the early days of the pandemic, Cahill started building health surveys for essential workers, which turned into an entire platform around daily tasks such as vehicle condition reports, crucial but often haphazard processes that most people hate doing.
“I’ve done this so many times myself,” Hill said. “You get in the truck in the morning, you reach into a glovebox with a dusty, dirty notebook and it’s got the inspection documents. You fire up the truck and you realize there’s an issue that was logged two months ago that never got turned into the home office.”
That’s the old way, Hill said. Digitizing the process means logging the same information into an app – a much more efficient way of communicating crucial information.
Cahill’s star began to rise in the construction industry. The company went from eight companies and 1,000 users in early 2020 to 40 companies and 4,000 users now.
Hill expects all those numbers to double again in the next 12 months. She said Cahill has 100% retention of customers and recently received crucial validation, winning the 2022 Innovation Award from the Associated General Contractors from America.
Her vision for a scalable startup in the construction industry is becoming a reality.
“We’re looking at a year of high growth and national scale,” Hill said. “Our whole team is hungry for massive expansion.”
Hill pointed out, though, that growth must be meaningful. That’s especially true for products, which can be overbuilt in a technical sense and must be straightforward and practically useful in the hands of field workers.
She speaks in the figurative language of a true industrial-tech founder.
“Being disruptive tech and building a startup means slogging through a lot of muck,” she said. “You’re pouring your own foundation.”
Cahill has closed on $375,000 of a seed-plus round this year, with contributions from Launch NY and other private investors.
Cahill is the ninth local company to confirm a growth-oriented capital raise this year. The other ones are Circuit Clinical ($29 million), PostProcess Technologies ($5 million), VeriTX ($4.5 million), HELIXintel ($3 million), ShearShare ($2.3 million), Patient Pattern ($2 million), BetterMynd ($1 million) and AireXpert ($125,000).
