Kraaft Raises $3 Million to Expand Contractor Messaging App

Kraaft has raised $3.7 million to bring its construction-sector messaging app to new industries.

According to a report Wednesday (Oct. 4) by EU Startups, the French company will use the funds to develop its product and expand into new geographies and markets.

“Eighty percent of the world’s population doesn’t work behind a computer, and messaging is eating the world! WhatsApp is brilliant because it’s so simple to use for people in the field,” said Co-founder Marc Nègre, whose LinkedIn profile calls his company “WhatsApp for contractors.”

“But it’s not enough,” he told EU Startups. “If you want to run your business effectively, you need to turn conversations into workflows. This is what Kraaft does, and we believe it can be applied to many industries, be it in construction, manufacturing, retail or agriculture.’

The funding round comes at a moment when many construction firms are bolstering their technology to upgrade operations and become more resilient.

As reported here earlier this year, PYMNTS’ Intelligence found that 30% of these companies had invested in time and cost-saving tech to prepare for a possible recession.

This includes technology to accelerate payments, reduce financing costs and streamline back-office processes — solutions that alleviate common pain points in the construction trade, according to the January/February edition of the “B2B and Digital Payments Tracker®,” a PYMNTS and American Express collaboration.

Last month saw construction operations platform Trusstor debut a project management system designed to ensure timely completion.

The company said its Last Planner uses “predefined activities, templates, workflows and activity sequences” based on construction project management best practices, letting users choose the sequence and timing of activities, with the company’s templates configuring the work plan automatically.

“Trusstor takes the standard Last Planner approach used in the industry for the weekly planning of construction sites and digitizes it,” Omri Sorek, co-founder and chief executive of Trusstor, said in a news release at the time.”

“At Trusstor we know how buildings are built, so we can give general contractors a framework tool to work from and it’s gonna save them a lot of time, compared to Excel or white board templates that were not developed specifically for the construction sector,” Sorek added.

Also last month, construction payment provider Billd teamed with software platform STACK to improve working capital access.

“We encourage all of our customers to think about working capital availability, and if necessary, financing costs, as early as possible,” said Chris Doyle, Billd’s founder and CEO.

“This integration equips subcontractors to be proactive about project finances and bid, plan and make promises to customers confidently, knowing that financial backing is readily available.”