By Riley Kaminer
Miami startup DigiBuild is working to bring construction companies into the 21st century, with its suite of digital project management and supply chain tools. To further this mission, DigiBuild today announced that they have closed a $1.3 million extension to the seed round that they originally raised last year. Participants include Valhalla Ventures, Cartography VC, Tadtech Fund, and Gaingels.
April Moss, DigiBuild’s co-founder and COO, told Refresh Miami that these funds will enable them to move forward on the company’s two major focuses: building its supplier database and onboarding more customers.
So far, the company has made good progress on both of these fronts. On the suppliers side, Moss expressed excitement about helping to connect providers with construction companies at scale. “We are creating the biggest supplier database in the world,” she said. This includes an emphasis on areas such as minority- and women-owned companies, plus suppliers that provide environmentally-friendly products.
Moss explained that this focus on suppliers came from years of exhaustive customer research, including her own interviews with upwards of 300 suppliers over the last month and a half alone. It is free for suppliers to join DigiBuild’s platform.
This work is beginning to pay off. Recently, DigiBuild integrated ChatGPT into its platform, enabling users to quickly access information across thousands of pages of construction suppliers, materials, specification books, schedules, and budgets. The AI tool understands the context of the queries and delivers the most relevant results.
“We just saved one customer $600,000 on an 80,000 square foot building, plus 600 hours on product management,” said Moss, thanks to this feature plus DigiBuild’s overall platform.
These sorts of savings have enabled DigiBuild to attract some top-tier clients such as Brasfield & Gorrie, one of the biggest general contractors in the US and a company that has a major footprint in Miami; JR Hospitality; and Baywood Hotels. The blockchain-powered nature of DigiFund’s platform is also a draw. It creates a single, verifiable source of truth – eliminating risk and disputes while saving users’ time. DigiBuild has also taken part in Y Combinator.
Co-founder and CEO Robert Salvador signaled that this is just the beginning. “We’re planning to scale more across the US and, eventually, internationally. We’re also planning to announce additional investments over the next few months, as well as our participation in bigger projects with current and new customers.”
“I could not be more proud of Robert, April, and the Digibuild family. They are some of the hardest workers in the web3 space, constantly innovating and constantly pushing forward. It is a highlight getting to work with them and having them on our Real Estate Committee,” say Samuel Armes, Founder of the Florida Blockchain Business Association.
Moss and Salvador [pictured above] first connected at P&G, where Moss was an executive leading a team that Salvador was on. Her 21 years at the marketing giant came in handy for Salvador and team, especially in the areas of operations, sales, and – increasingly – supply chain logistics. DigiBuild now has 15 employees.
Long term, DigiBuild hopes to build a community of construction companies and service providers. “We’re creating a whole ecosystem where everybody’s needs are taken care of and everyone is helping everyone else,” Moss said.
