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Why we invested – Join
According to a recent survey by the American Institute of Architects, 71% of architects and general contractors surveyed strongly agree that early collaboration between the two parties during the construction project lifecycle led to a better outcome for clients. Despite this alignment, of contractors surveyed, nearly 50% expressed dissatisfaction with architects when it comes to timely responses to RFIs, submission of complete specs, and accurate cost estimations. Conversely, nearly half of architects were largely dissatisfied with contractors’ proposed material substitutions and focus on sustainability.
With a clear need for increased collaboration across the construction industry, startup Join has stepped in to offer a comprehensive solution. Join’s platform is the only software that addresses the multidisciplinary nature of AEC decision-making, enabling all stakeholders, including contractors, owners, designers, and architects, to gain real-time visibility into each decision and its impact. Led by CEO Andrew Zukoski, and his impressive team, Join has already attracted some of the biggest names in construction including Clark Construction, DPR Construction, and McCarthy.
Ironspring Ventures is excited to have partnered with Join in its $16 million Series A to accelerate its sales effort across construction as well as its product roadmap. We are proud to be joined by lead investor SignalFire, as well as other participating investors including MetaProp, Building Ventures, and Standard Ventures.
As mentioned above, Join offers a software platform aimed at bringing increased communication, collaboration, and trust throughout the project decision-making process. Specifically, Join’s platform brings together general contractors, owners and developers, design teams, and trade contractors to collectively understand the “who, what, when, and why” for each material decision in a project. Stakeholders can see which decisions have been accepted, rejected or incorporated, can access real-time data visualizations to understand a decision’s impact on cost or timeline, and can leverage Join’s streamlined communication tools to eliminate disjointed emails and data silos.
To gather the necessary data to assess the impact of project-related decisions, Join offers integrations with Excel, Sage, Estimator, Procore, Winest, and other estimating tools.
With a clear market fit, Join has already attracted 50 clients to its platform, which include major names such as DPR, McCarthy, Messer, Carton Malow, Kitchell, Swinerton, and more. To support its growing product and customer base, Join is planning to expand its employee base by 50% by 2023.
With the construction industry seeing global losses upward of $89B that stem directly from a lack of data-based decision-making, Join is well-positioned to capitalize on this genuine market need for empirically driven collaboration among construction stakeholders.
At Ironspring Ventures, we were immediately drawn to Join’s core mission and vision to enable better & faster decisions via true stakeholder collaboration earlier in the project lifecycle. Andrew and his team recognized that the preconstruction phase is where the majority of (almost all) project profitability and risk originates. We were drawn to their thoughtful approach to product design that delivers new levels of trust, visibility, and accountability to every project decision maker in real-time. We were also impressed by the team’s commitment to customer satisfaction and feedback throughout the product development process.
Andrew and his team have demonstrated exceptional execution and drive, not to mention special attention toward creating a positive team environment and culture, and we cannot wait to see where they take Join next!
