Agave

SaaS for construction

🦄 Unicorner Startup of the Week: Agave

✍️ Notes from the Editors

Today’s article is brought to you by Mercury. Learn about how they’re enabling founders to succeed with Mercury Raise.

As you might already know, according to the reputable sources of TikTok, the Roman Empire is at the top of every man’s mind.

Now, if you’re a history buff like us, construction and the Roman Empire are basically synonymous. Widespread use of concrete? Cool looking arched bridges? Just mentioning it already feels like we’re sitting in a bathhouse, in togas, discussing the latest state of affairs of the uprisings in Gaul.

All this to say: the Romans knew how to streamline construction. Fast forward two millennia, and Agave is bringing that level of streamlining to the digital stage. By keeping data in sync across all vendors and contractors on a project, construction teams can optimize for success.

For this week’s article, we’re welcoming Derek Wong to our contributor team! We’re super excited to have him on board. Check out his blog So What Now? for personal anecdotes, musings, and occasional AI philosophy.

- Arek and Ethan 🦄

Unified API for construction software

Agave is a SaaS startup for construction companies. It offers a single, unified point of truth for software vendors and contractors alike by connecting over 30 systems. Between integrating with a customer’s Enterprise Resource Planning and retrieving data and invoices from a CRM, Agave aims to streamline workflows, save time, reduce errors, and cut costs.

🔗 Check it out: agaveapi.com

💰 Business Model

Licenses start at $500 a month and scale up to $2,000 monthly, depending on how your system is set up (Cloud vs. hosted vs. on-prem). They also offer add-ons such as Webhooks or a File Manager for up to an extra $400 a month.

📈 Traction and Fundraising

  • Raised $3 million in seed funding from Accel, Y Combinator, and dozens of angels including the founders of Plaid, PlanGrid, EquipmentShare, Fieldwire, and Honest Buildings, and executives from Autodesk and Procore

  • Participated in Y Combinator W22 batch

  • Over 65 customers from $5 billion companies to startups

  • Has grown revenue 15% MoM since launch

👫 Founders

  • Tom Reno - Previously technical project manager @ Amazon, managing three software development teams (for a total of 21 engineers) around Alexa, and project manager at Graphiq, which was acquired by Amazon. Worked with co-founders Zucchi, Azimi, and Zhang for 10 years.

  • John Zucchi - Previously technical project manager @ Amazon leading the enterprise launch of Alexa, and project manager at Graphiq.

  • Pooria Azimi - Previously senior software engineer @ Amazon as a core engineer behind Alexa’s QA platform, and a software engineer at Graphiq.

  • Samantha Zhang - Previously lead designer @ Amazon for Alexa’s Data Visualizations, and a design lead at Graphiq.

More than banking. The network you need to succeed.

Even with big ambitions, only a small percentage of startups make it.

We’re here to change that. Introducing Mercury Raise, the comprehensive founder success platform built to remove roadblocks at every step of the startup journey.

Looking for the connections for your next fundraise? Get personalized intros to active investors. Craving the company of people who get it? Join our founder community to exchange advice and support. At an impasse with how to take your company to the next stage? Tune in to unfiltered discussions with industry experts to glean direction-setting insights.

With Mercury Raise, you don’t have to go it alone.

Sponsored content

📖 Founder Story

It’s a shame that in our superhero world, we never received a tolerable Fantastic 4 movie. But if they ever rebooted the series, I’d cast the Agave founders.

This is a tight-knit group of founders. In 2014, they met at Graphiq, a startup built to help people make better decisions by connecting data from thousands of disparate sources. While at Graphiq, they served Procore, a giant in the construction industry. Amazon acquired Graphiq in 2017 to help support the growth of Alexa. After spending four years there, they eventually split off to build Graphiq for the construction industry.

💼 Opportunities

Interested in finding your next job?

Interested in hiring talent from the Unicorner community?

🔮 Our Analysis

Approximately a $12 trillion market, the industry in 2023 looks eerily similar to the industry in 1923. However, in recent years, more and more investments and companies have been built to bring the construction industry into the modern day. The biggest problem? There’s now disparate and fractured software scattered everywhere. As the industry digitizes, the scattered software leaves project owners and contractors frustrated.

Agave is looking to tackle this problem by providing a single source of truth for all software and data for the construction industry. By building the “highway system of construction technology,” its software gives vendors, contractors, and owners a simple, easy, and clean way to keep building their projects. Its data management platform (Agave Sync and Agave Analytics) keeps collective data in sync and automates repetitive tasks.

With such a great team and such a massive problem to tackle, there’s no reason why these superheroes won’t win.

📚 Further Reading

Written by Derek Wong

How did you like today's cover?

Reply with your thoughts on what you like (or don't like) about this week's company!

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

🔎 Classifieds

Highlights and advertisements from our community

  • You've turned an idea into a product. Now what? Launching is hard. F3 Collective helps you find, pitch, and close your ideal customers ASAP. Schedule a free consultation with them today*

  • Want to learn more about AI? The AI Entrepreneurs is a free, tri-weekly newsletter with 57,000+ readers. Subscribe and learn more 🤖

Want your news promoted here? Reply to this email!

*Sponsored content

If you enjoyed today's article, forward this email to a friend!

If you're just seeing this email now, subscribe here.

Made with 💜 by the Unicorner team 🦄