Procore Ups Startup Acquisition Pace As Construction Tech Consolidation Continues

Construction tech unicorn Procore  has acquired its third startup in 12 months as part of its plan to broaden its offerings through M&A.

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Late yesterday, the southern California company announced its buy of Construction BI, an AI-driven analytics company for the construction industry. This follows Procore’s July purchase of Honest Buildings, a provider of project management software for owners and developers, and its September 2018 acquisition of BIManywhere, a visual BIM (building information modeling) collaboration platform for construction and facilities management.

Founded in 2002, Procore’s cloud-based software is aimed at streamlining a variety of processes for the construction industry, a sector that has historically been slow to adopt technology. Per itself, “Procore connects people, applications, and devices through a unified platform to help construction professionals manage risk and build quality projects—safely, on time, and within budget.”

Procore, which operates as a SaaS company, has seen impressive growth in recent years. It currently has more than 1,800 employees, up 600 compared to a year ago, across 13 offices globally. Procore has also seen its ARR (annual recurring revenue) surge from under $10 million in 2014 to over $250 million today. In December, we reported how the company had tripled its valuation to $3 billion after raising a $75 million Series H from Tiger Global Management.

Yesterday, I talked with Procore Founder and CEO Craig “Tooey” Courtemanche by phone about the company’s M&A strategy, and he told me “this is just the beginning.”

“We have a full-time team of folks evaluating opportunities for us to bring cultures, products and companies into the Procore ecosystem through M&A,” he said. “We have a deep pipeline of companies we’re always looking at, and expect to do at least one more this year.”

In the case of Construction BI, the company’s founder Jason Ramsey had built his product on Procore’s app marketplace in 2017. After hearing nothing but “great things” from its customers who had adopted the technology, Procore made the move to acquire the company and integrate it into its platform.

Overall, M&A has been rampant in the construction tech industry, as we reported in May 2018. Over the years, large tech companies have been scooping up industry-focused startups that were developing relevant technologies faster than they could. These days, we’re just seeing more consolidation in the space in general, according to Crunchbase data. For example, in June Crestview Partners-backed Congruex, a provider of design and construction-related services to broadband service providers, announced it had purchased Terra Technologies, a specialized civil engineering and construction firm. And, software giant Autodesk acquired three startups last year, including its $875 million purchase of PlanGrid and $275 million buy of Buildingconnected.

Meanwhile, funding in the space appears to have reached a peak in 2018, and has slowed some this year so far.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias