The Y Combinator-sponsored startup has raised $3 million in new seed funding to make the roofing enterprise more transparent for clients and contractors. The startup uses aerial imaging to present customers with quick estimates online and connects them with neighborhood roofing contractors in their area. Crosslink Capital led the organization’s seed spherical, bringing Roofr’s general investment to $four million.
Richard Nelson, the founder and CEO of Roofer, instructed Crunchbase News that the conventional roofing industry version is in determined want of disruption. The Toronto-local ought to recognize—he came from a long line of roofers and decided to begin the agency after his work enjoy.
“I took an activity with one of the largest residential, industrial roofing contractors up in Toronto, Canada,” Nelson informed me in Roofer’s new San Francisco office. “I had observed there had been quite a few problems… but it wasn’t till I got a taste of certainly one of the larger businesses that I changed into actually like, wow, this enterprise is completely archaic.”
In Nelson’s view, the traditional version allows huge industrial roofing contractors to act as advertising and marketing agencies that lease subcontractors—neighborhood roofing businesses—to do their work. “They add upwards of sometimes 50% on the pinnacle of the subcontractors’ hard work fees simply to be that middleman,” Nelson defined.
So he sold his house, stop his activity, and went the startup path in April 2015. Six months later, he changed into added to his now technical co-founder Kevin Redman. The organization’s first 65 residential customers joined after hearing Nelson’s door-to-door pitch about Roofer’s online aerial imaging-enabled quoting device. They then implemented the Y Combinator and 500 Startups accelerator programs in San Francisco and hit the street to participate in YC’s Summer 2017 cohort.
A roofer works with local residential and business roofing groups within the Bay Area, Ontario, Canada, and Florida. Customers in those areas can go to the Roofer website, fill out a questionnaire with their deal, and receive an aerial photograph and set of rules-primarily based estimate for a neighborhood contractor, which Nelson says is accurate within 10 percent. The employer then assigns an in-house roofing professional to speak with the consumer before assigning a contractor.
“That’s where we go above and past any of the other home services marketplaces,” Nelson defined. “If you visit any of the other competitors… they’re only an easy aggregator that’s connecting you to multiple roofing contractors of their app, and also you pick who you need to paintings with.”
Roofer generally connects its clients with just one contractor. The local commercial enterprise itself, which is vetted earlier than becoming a member of Roofer, sends out a contractor for a very last inspection and quote. Businesses are not required to use Roofr’s exact price and only pay Roofr’s fee if they take on the project.
Nelson says that via using Roof, homeowners typically shop on average 20 percent compared to business roofing businesses. On the B2B side, he says that neighborhood businesses now have the possibility to build out their logo and clientele and earn 10 to 15 percent greater than they might by sub-contracting beneath a larger company.
“The aim is to hold [roofing contractors] very busy,” Nelson said. “One of our busiest roofing contractors nearly did two hundred roofs with us an ultimate year.”
Roof works with customers both within the commercial and residential sectors. With the investment, the company might be developing its team and expanding its reach into Texas. “It is a massive opportunity from an investor viewpoint. It’s near $60 billion a year enterprise; there are nearly five million buildings which have their roof changed every unmarried yr in North America.”
