Construction app Canibuild nails $8 million Series A

Residential building software platform canibuild has raised $8 million in a Series A.

The round was led by EVP, with support from Regal Funds Management, with the funds earmarked towards growth in Australia, New Zealand and the US, and plans to expand into additional markets

Founded in 2020 by Timothy and Stella Cocaro, Deepankur Malhotra and Shuvajeet Nag, the startup has quadrupled in size to more than 50 staff, with revenue growing at 20% month-on-month over the past year. 

Canibuild gives builders a simple and quick way to assess a site’s suitability for construction in real time, from houses to sheds, granny flats and pools.  

The venture already has 3,000 users daily across its three existing markets, including leading building brands Metricon, GJ Gardner, Australia’s largest home builder, McDonald Jones, and Narellan Pools.

canibuild co-founder Stella Cocaro

The platform uses a Geographic Information System (GIS) with artificial intelligence (AI) to create an  inclusive planning and design tool so a building sales team can take customers through design, viability and compliance in a visual way.

General manager and co-founder Stella Cocaro is a pioneer of the sector, having now launched two construction businesses while also raising four children under the age of 12, having joined the male-dominated building industry after a decade in teaching.

She also co-founded RESCON – one of the largest granny flat companies in New South Wales – with her husband Timothy.

With canibuild they’ve created a proptech SaaS platform to help builders to check site feasibility, costs and more with the click of a button.

“Due to its hands-on nature, the residential construction industry has often been a laggard when it comes to the adoption of technology,” Stella said.

“However, purpose-built tech like ours is changing that for the better. We’re benefiting from this rising tide and the need for smarter operations in a market that’s  under increasing pressure on margins.”

With more than 100,000 homes predicted to be build in Australia in the year ahead, Cocaro said canibuild’s flexibility and the platform’s broad application opens canibuild to the entire house and land packaging market, including developers seeking an easier method of sale.

Her husband Timothy, canibuild’s CEO, said the majority of challenges faced during construction can be traced back to how a residence was first sold, the mismanagement of planning and the misalignment of client and builder expectations.

“We built canibuild to solve these problems. Our goal is to make life easier for everyone in the building process,” he said.

“canibuild helps both builders and their clients to instantly understand what can be done on a block of land. Physical site visits, drafting, surveying, estimating and a complex series of high friction  steps are reduced to a point in time transaction through a digital environment.

“Rather than going back and forth for weeks, we give users the ability to see the project site virtually and contract instantly. This increased transparency dramatically reduces sales cycles and planning  timelines which have historically been a significant burden on builders and their clients.” 

Ben McCallum, portfolio Manager at Regal Funds Management, said canibuild solves one of the many archaic processes prevalent in construction. 

“canibuild streamlines what is often a highly iterative, multi-week sales process through its digital sales experience which aggregates and automates multiple steps in the customer journey whilst eliminating multiple bottlenecks in the process,” he said.

“It’s no surprise the resounding feedback from every builder we spoke to was of overwhelming praise.”