Our Investment in GoContractor

“Workplace injuries account for 6-9% of project costs whereas an effective health and safety program accounts for only 2.5% of those cost”

-The Center for Construction Research and Training¹

Site Safety. It is, and has always been, a paramount concern we hear from construction companies all across our network over and over. Over the years, we have seen numerous technological approaches to help reduce the number and severity of safety incidents (leading to our investment in Smartvid.io). Despite all this innovation, the construction industry still accounts for 1 in 5 worker deaths in the U.S. Not only can we do better, we must do better. What we discovered in our research on the space is that there are three primary determinants of safety outcomes on a jobsite: Comprehensive Information, Proper Training, and Conscientious Behavior.  No one disputes the importance of all three but they come with a valuable cost, worker time. In every project, time is a precious commodity and time in the trailer or the classroom takes away from time on the jobsite. And that is where GoContractor’s value proposition begins (but definitely not where it ends).

We were first introduced to GoContractor by a trusted member of our Innovators Network as a solution that takes “all the stress out of the traditional orientation process”.  We were immediately impressed by the leadership of John Naughton and the traction and reputation the company had established with European construction firms. As we learned more, we realized that GoContractor had so much more potential than a training portal or a learning management system, but rather was a complete Contractor Management Platform that holds the promise of being the system of record for all training and worker compliance data. By enabling online, off-site training and certification sessions, GoContractor can validate the completeness and thoroughness of a workers training program so they can arrive onsite and ready to work, saving precious time and resources.

And then Covid hit, and construction firms around the globe were confronted with yet another safety and operating challenge that limited job site density and impacted site productivity. In Ireland, GoContractor partnered with the Construction Industry Foundation to train EVERY Irish construction worker, more than 150,000 people, on Covid safety protocols allowing them to return to work immediately when their lockdown was lifted on May 18th. As of today, more than 250,000 workers have conducted the CIF safety training on the platform. Witnessing the speed and efficacy of GoContractor’s solution on an entire country’s construction industry in the span of a few weeks demonstrated the enormous impact GoContractor could have for construction firms, their subcontractors, their projects and their workers.

One of our core investment themes is the need for dramatically increased efficiency and productivity in the construction process, embodied in our focus on “Constructuring”. Society is dependent upon the continuous and rapid development and re-development of our built environment. A key tenant of Constructuring is the idea that construction must adopt the predictable repeatable processes. GoContractor automates so many of the steps and processes that currently lead to inefficiency and waste of the most precious and scarce resource, worker time. And you needn’t take our word for it, GoContractor has already onboarded over 500,000 construction workers across more than 1,000 firms and boasts a 97% customer satisfaction rating.

McKinsey’s research has shown there is a $265 Billion profit opportunity globally available to construction firms that embrace technology to improve project delivery and outcomes. Improving worker knowledge, productivity and safety are all critical elements in capturing this opportunity. GoContractor’s software platform is poised to play an essential role in the digital transformation of the construction industry globally.

We were thrilled to co-lead GoContractor’s $5 million Series A round with our friends from Ironspring Ventures. The capital will enable GoContractor to relocate it’s HQ from Dublin to the US to accelerate their expansion here and across Europe. We look forward to being part of the journey!

Learn more about GoContractor here.