Vancouver-based construction employment app ToolBelt raised $2.5 million from investors as it looks to expand its reach farther along the West Coast.
The company built an app that connects residential home builds and general contractors to subcontractors, skilled or general labor. In the two years it has been around it has helped connect labor for $100 million worth of projects in Washington and Oregon, said co-founder and CEO Josh Engelbrecht.
“Our mission is to connect the construction industry’s labor in order to increase production capacity for all,” he said in a written statement. “Our team has built a simple solution to an everyday problem the industry faces.”
The app has thousands of users on both sides of its marketplace and a high percentage are active every month, Engelbrecht said in an interview.
Builders and general contractors can post projects and tradespeople can easily search by project to find work. Builders and contractors can also search an active database of tradespeople to find folks in different specialties.
Traditionally, this connection is done through word of mouth, said Engelbrecht, who spent years working in general contracting. That means that a builder or contractor’s capacity for work is limited by the number of people they may know in different trades. For instance, if a contractor gets 10 requests to remodel kitchens and they only know five tile experts they will be limited in how many projects they can take.
ToolBelt focuses on the residential construction industry, which is booming, particularly as people have begun to remodel homes following Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and single-family home demand rises. Engelbrecht noted that homeowner demand is outstripping contractor capacity by 70%.
Engelbrecht and co-founder and chief technology officer Ross Barbieri started fundraising for this round in the fall.
The round was led by HR Tech Investments LLC, which is an affiliate of the recruiting company Indeed. Engelbrecht said the initial connection between the two companies came when Indeed contacted ToolBelt. He noted that several major hiring players have contacted the company over the last year but talks with Indeed evolved from partnership to investment.
Engelbrecht sees Indeed as an important strategic partner as the team continues to build ToolBelt.
The round also included building materials company Saint-Gobain, local investors Elevate Capital and Cascade Seed Fund.
“As a leading supplier of building materials, Saint-Gobain understands the challenge of finding quality, skilled workers in the construction industry,” said Minas Apelian, vice president of external and internal venturing, at Saint-Gobain in a written statement. “With our investment in ToolBelt, we can help contractors fill the employment gap and help tradespeople find employment opportunities to boost overall efficiency and productivity in the construction sector.”
The company has roughly a dozen employees and has made several recent executive hires around sales and marketing as it looks to expand, Engelbrecht said. Barbieri is also looking for senior developers as the company builds out its features in its product roadmap.
ToolBelt has raised a total of $3.5 million. The app is free for the tradespeople side of the marketplace and it generates revenue by charging builders and contractors who post projects.
