Roofing service software company Roofr has announced it raised a $4 million seed round in SAFE and priced equity financing, following its graduation from the Y Combinator’s summer of 2017 class.
The investment was led by Crosslink Capital, alongside Y Combinator, Ace & Company, Louis Beryl and other angel investors.
“We’re very mission-driven, and our mission is to ensure every family has access to protect their home with an affordable roof,” said Richard Nelson, Founder and CEO of Roofr. “As a third generation roofing contractor, I’ve experienced the broken roofing industry first hand. Homeowners and business owners have no transparency into price and roofing contractors have difficulty sourcing high-quality potential customers. Roofr aims to solve these issues.”
“What excites us about Roofr is their ability to bring a large, offline market to the digital age.”
Roofr uses aerial and satellite imagery to measure customer roofs and provide a free roofing estimate. The service then connects customers with a vetted roofing contractor to conduct an in-person inspection, provide a final proposal, and complete the work. The first million in the seed round was in simple agreement for future equity (SAFE), while the remaining three million was in priced equity.
Y Combinator has spawned a number of highly successful companies and is consistently ranked at the top of U.S. accelerators. Previous companies include Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, Reddit, Optimizely, Zenefits, Docker, DoorDash, Mixpanel, Heroku. In its program, Y Combinator companies receive seed money, advice, and connections in exchange for seven percent equity.
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With this new round of investment, Roofr plans to launch a free satellite measurement application for roofing contractors to more accurately measure and estimate roofs directly from their desk. Roofr currently serves Ontario, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the entire state of Florida. It plans to use the funding to expand its reach to new marketplaces, including Texas, and to grow its engineering, sales, and marketing teams.
Traditionally Y Combinator has had a reputation for pushing Canadian companies to relocate.
BetaKit recently sat down with Eric Migicovsky, who recently joined Y Combinator as the seed fund’s 18th full-time partner, who noted many YC graduates returned to Toronto after the program, pointing to a new model for the accelerator.
Originally, Y Combinator all but required founders to move their startup to Silicon Valley, a move Migicovsky and the Pebble team made in 2011. But despite this new model, Roofr, which was got its start at Toronto’s DMZ in 2016, decided to stay San Francisco rather than returning to Toronto.
“Myself and my co-founder, Kevin, were both born and raised in Toronto, making it the logical place to start Roofr,” Nelson told BetaKit. “Toronto DMZ was instrumental to us getting in front of investors and ultimately getting into Y Combinator. After that, we launched in San Fransisco, our first US market, and moved our office to ensure we had an on-the-ground presence. Toronto continues to be one of Roofr’s fastest growing markets, and we look forward to our continued growth in Canada and across the US.”
In addition to connecting roofing contractors with high quality potential customers, Roofr’s long-term goal is to provide roofers with a host of free tools to streamline operations and boost profit.
“What excites us about Roofr is their ability to bring a large, offline market to the digital age,” said Omar El-Ayat, partner at Crosslink Capital and newest member to Roofr’s board of directors. “They provide a pain-free experience to consumers, while providing a suite of tools enabling roofers to grow and streamline their business. Richard’s deep domain experience gives us confidence this is the best team to build a business in the roofing market.”
Image courtesy Roofr.