Property insurance technology startup RoofMarketplace Inc. recently raised $1.1 million in seed funding and is establishing a Milwaukee office as it prepares for rapid growth, according to the Whitewater-based company.
Madison-based Rock River Capital Partners LLC and Peter Gunder, a partner at American Family Ventures, led the round, according to a June announcement.
RoofMarketplace also signed a lease that starts in July for a private office in Ward4, a co-working space at 313 N. Plankinton Ave. in Milwaukee, RoofMarketplace CEO William Bazeley said Tuesday.
RoofMarketplace is an online platform that connects property insurance carriers with contractors that bid to settle roofing claims. It uses aerial imagery to scope jobs, enabling roofers to bid without visiting the property.
Although Bazeley and his two co-founders started RoofMarketplace around eight years ago, 2020 was a "breakout year" for the startup, he said. The company grew from four to 17 employees and was profitable.
RoofMarketplace is on track to double its revenue in 2021 and again in 2022, Bazeley said, but he declined to disclose revenue numbers.
The company's growth was accelerated by mentorship through Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) Wisconsin, the local branch of a nine-month global entrepreneurship program for seed-stage, high-growth potential startups. In 2020 and 2021, RoofMarketplace participated in CDL's first risk cohort, which operates through the University of Wisconsin-Madison with sponsorship by American Family Insurance.
"It really helped us figure out our funding strategy and where we wanted to go," Bazeley said.
Although RoofMarketplace is based in Wisconsin, it has initially focused on markets in Florida. The new funding will support its expansion into new markets in Texas, Louisiana and the Carolinas in the coming months, as well as at least four or five additional hires, Bazeley said.
Bazeley co-founded the company in 2013 along with Timothy Russell, RoofMarketplace's chief technology officer, and David Kish, the vice president of operations. It took several years to get off the ground because adoption from insurance carriers was initially slow, Bazeley said.
With a background in insurance, Bazeley previously was a sales executive at Marshall & Swift/Boeckh, LLC, a Milwaukee-based company that's now part of the Irvine, California-based property data firm CoreLogic Inc., and Vennd Technologies LLC, a Dallas claims management software company.
Bazeley, Russell and Gunder are members of RoofMarketplace's board of directors, along with Christopher Eckstrom and Andrew Walker from Rock River Capital Partners.
"Roof damage is one of the largest areas of claims for insurance companies," Walker said in a statement earlier this month, "which is why we feel RoofMarketplace is positioned well to make a big impact for both roofers and insurers."
