In the construction industry, where traditionally cash is king, a payments app designed to help contractors just wrapped up a $30 million round of fundraising.
Scott Wolfe, CEO of Levelset, says that money will be going toward research and development to ultimately help streamline the payment process and allow contractors to easily stay in compliance.
"We get contractors paid faster today and we want them to get paid immediately after they do the work and we're innovating to get to that reality," he told Cheddar Thursday.
Levelset has been using a vast amount of data it can glean from users about payment behavior and is trying to use that to offer some clarity in what Wolfe says is a largely opaque industry.
"We touch about a hundred thousand new construction projects every month. We're basically seeing the financial transactions on almost every construction project in the nation and so we're seeing the payment behaviors," he said, adding, "We can take those payment behaviors and put that information into everyone's hand to empower them to make decisions, to know who they should be doing business with, what kind of payment terms to expect, what kind of payment terms they can negotiate."
Wolfe sees other industries with layered and fragmented systems where Levelset's platform may be able to someday expand, but he stressed that he believes there's a lot more room to grow within the construction industry.
Sinead O’Sullivan breaks down Taylor Swift’s genius marketing for The Life of a Showgirl, which just set the record for most albums sold in a single week.
Markets are emerging from a turbulent Q3. Horizon’s Mike Dickson shares insights on interest rates, small caps, and where investors should look in Q4 and beyond
Bambu Ventures's Kyle Pretsch dives into Lemonaid’s $10M buyout, down from 23andMe’s $400M price tag, and what’s next after Chrome Co.’s dramatic pivot.
Former Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers learned all about technology’s volatile highs and lows as a veteran of the internet’s early boom days during the late 1990s and the ensuing meltdown that followed the mania. And now he is seeing potential signs of the cycle repeating with another transformative technology in artificial intelligence. Chambers is trying take some of the lessons he learned while riding a wave that turned Cisco into the world's most valuable company in 2000 before a crash hammered its stock price and apply them as an investor in AI startups. He recently discussed AI's promise and perils during an interview with The Associated Press.
Grove Collaborative’s CEO shares how the company is reinventing everyday goods with sustainability at the core and working toward a plastic-free future.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens shares plans for affordable housing, community-led growth, and why private and public grocery stores could be key to food equity.
Tesla reported a surprise increase in sales in the third quarter as the electric car maker likely benefited from a rush by consumers to take advantage of a $7,500 credit before it expired on Sept. 30. The company reported Thursday that sales in the three months through September rose 7% compared to the same period a year ago. The gain follows two quarters of steep declines as people turned off by CEO Elon Musk’s foray into right-wing politics avoided buying his company’s cars and even protested at some dealerships. Sales rose to 497,099 vehicles, compared with 462,890 in the same period last year.
