Kitchener-based Bridgit, offering a project management platform for construction businesses, has announced its second product, Bridgit Bench, a resource planning tool, that is now publicly available.
“Achieving a strong product-market fit with our initial offering was imperative before broadening our product offering.”
Bridgit originally made reference to “an upcoming product” in its $6.2 million Series A announced in March. The company conducted a “stealth launch” of the product, Bridgit Bench, in February to a small group of prospects and two weeks ago, officially launched it on its website. The new product was designed to eliminate the headaches around Excel spreadsheets, through a platform that consolidates team data, aiming to streamline the process of managing projects and teams.
“Bridgit has built a strong foothold in the North American construction market with Bridgit Field, our inspections and punch list management platform,” said Bridgit CEO Mallorie Brodie. “Achieving a strong product-market fit with our initial offering was imperative before broadening our product offering for the construction industry. Now, we are thrilled to announce the release of Bridgit Bench, a resource planning platform built specifically for the construction vertical.”
The company’s second product, allows team leaders to manage their workforce and plan team projects through a centralized platform that provides actionable insights into resource planning. The workforce management component allows employers to view each employee’s current and past projects, any coinciding workload issues, contact information, and details, including custom attributes, such as certifications. The team project planning feature is one spot to instantly see all of your projects and scheduling conflicts.
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The company was co-founded by Brodie and Lauren Lake, after they met in the Toronto-based Next 36 young entrepreneur program in early 2013. Lake and Brodie were recently named on the 2019 Forbes Manufacturing and Industry 30 Under 30. Half of the company’s team is female, and Bridgit also boasts full-pay equity for its staff.
Last week, Bridgit received $750,000 from the federal government through FedDev Ontario and its $6.2 million Series A, earlier this year, was led by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) Capital Women in Technology Fund. The company took part in the University of Toronto’s Creative Destruction Lab, and in 2016, raised a $2.2 million Seed round led by Hyde Park Venture Partners with participation from Vanedge Capital.
“Our ambition is to provide a simple solution… for a complicated task, ensuring workforces are highly utilized, and making it easy to put the perfect team together for every project,” Brodie said.
Bridgit’s software solutions are used by general contractors, engineering firms, and real-estate developers across North America. Some of the company’s other solutions include Bridgit Quality, a kick-off to close-out inspection management solution, and Bridgit Insights, a dashboard of a project’s task and inspection metrics. These micro-solutions fit into the company’s suite of products entitled Field, which is designed for on-site use. Bench, while designed for office-based operations, is still tailored specifically for the construction industry.
“While historically slow to replace manual methods with technology, the construction industry experienced a breakthrough year in 2018, with technology investment inflating to 30 percent, equaling $1.05 billion,” a statement from the company said. “In 2019, 74 percent of contractors anticipate adopting more technology, and the total value of the sector is expected to exceed $10 trillion by 2020.”
Image courtesy Bridgit Bench