Blackbird leads proptech Sitemate’s $5.2m raise

A startup developing no-code software tools for companies operating in the heavy industries has raised $5.2 million in an investment round led by VC firm Blackbird.

The tranche will assist Sydney-based proptech Sitemate in scaling its business model, which has been described as “closer to Atlassian than Aconex” by Blackbird principal Tom Humphrey.

Launched out of the University of Sydney’s startups program in 2015 and formerly known as Construction Cloud, Sitemate is hoping to overhaul processes for companies in the ‘Built World’ by digitising paperwork and processes.

Sitemate co-founder and CEO Hartley Pike says ‘Built World’ companies, defined as those operating in heavy industries like construction, manufacturing, energy, power, utilities and more, often still rely on paper forms, physical folders and legacy software to document, track and manage work.

Pike hopes to do away with those clunky, antiquated processes and bring the industries into the digital world with Sitemate’s no-code software tools.

“There’s an unfair assumption that the Built World industries have an ‘old school’ workforce or have been uniquely resistant to change, when in fact the softwares designed for them simply haven’t been good enough or easy enough to use,” says Pike.

“Unlike many white collar industries who have had access to no code tooling and paperless processes for years, the vast majority of the companies we work with were still doing their work manually.

“These companies have now been able to easily digitise and streamline their end-to-end processes via our flagship product, the Dashpivot Systems Cloud.”

Blackbird principal Humphrey says he has high hopes for the company which already has a global customer base with go-to-market operations established in Sydney and London. North American operations are expected to be online before the end of 2022.

“It is a product-led company bringing real-time collaboration and a seamless product experience to the hundreds of millions of workers who wear hardhats and steel capped work boots - just like Atlassian did for software developers and software companies,” says Humphrey.

The raise also attracted the likes of Shearwater Capital and angels including local tech founders Tom Doyle (Eucalyptus) and Rory San Miguel (Propellor), who all returned for the latest tranche.

“The Sitemate team deeply understand the problem they are solving and have shown a consistent ability to grow their customer base through down and up cycles,” says Shearwater Capital managing partner Zac Zavos, who first invested in Sitemate in 2019.