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At a time when many startup are struggle to raise funding or are raising but at broken valuations , it ’s notable when companies raise at flat or higher valuation . Especially when their last raise took place in 2021 — a time when capital was much easier to derive by and valuations were climbing at sick rates .
Briq , which has progress a platform designed to set aside all departments of a construction company to automatise financial work flow such as accounts payable and payroll department , has raise $ 8 million in an denotation rhythm at a $ 150 million rating . The startup last announce a fundraise in June of 2021 — a$30 million Series Bfinancing lead by Tiger Global Management .
The company opt to “ look out the market ” and put forward a little dollar amount with less dilution at a flat valuation rather than go out and endeavor to resurrect a Series C , suppose CEO and co - founder Bassem Hamdy in an interview with TechCrunch .
Tiger Global doubled down on its investment in Briq by conduce to the wing . Blackhorn and Eniac co - led the bout . MetaProp , whose managing cooperator Aaron Block is rig to join Briq ’s board , also put . Multi - billion - dollar German business firm Nemetschek also became a angel .
With over nearly 400 customer , Briz says it saw ARR ( yearly recurring revenue ) increase of about 40 % in 2023 compared to 2022 . The company has also been executing a cost - reduction strategy , which has lead to a 45 % reduction in employees to 138 by the end of 2023 compare to 2022 .
Customers include Choate Construction , Catamount Constructors , Fessler & Bowman , and Elder Construction , among others .
“ Briq essentially sits on top of other solutions to run them better , ” Hamdy said . “ It ’s like a playbook ”
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Bots automating business processes
establish in 2018 by former Procore exec Hamdy and Wall Street oldtimer Ron Goldshmidt , Briq claims to have incorporate hokey intelligence ( AI ) into its offer before AI was a mainstream terminus .
Briq has built an offering that uses a group of proprietary technologies , the flagship of which are its habit of generative mechanization bots . The startup says it has a library of over 200 bot that have been train “ how to perform the actions and tasks that are otherwise done by humans in these financial work flow specific to the construction space , ” according to Hamdy .
Briq deploy that across two products : Briq AutoPilot and Briq CoPilot . The Briq AutoPilot production uses bot to automate what Briq arrogate is up to 80 % of those business organisation process “ that are extremely deterministic and predictable in nature , such as account payable , describe receivable , and payroll processing . ”
“ These bots have learned how to record documents , apply logic to their subject , and take actions based on those rules , ” said Hamdy . “ Just think of it as Tesla ’s autopilot for your account statement group . There ’s definitely a labor compaction in grammatical construction so instead of throwing bodies at these departments , you could use our software . ”
The other Cartesian product where Briq deploy the technical school is in Briq CoPilot . That product automatise the founding and governance of financial prognostication processes such as job price foretelling , revenue credit and revenue prediction . It also insert end - user coaching job and risk detection to help contractile organ and project managers avoid cost overrun , overlook change Holy Order , and other fiscal risks that are introduced in the course of a business , Hamdy said .
The end effect , Briq claim , is that companies are able to reduce overhead costs and increase their profit margins . To appointment , Briq articulate it has automated over a million tasks in the construction industriousness .
Hamdy views Briq ’s competitors to be companies such as UiPath and Automation Anywhere .
Expansion into new geographies
MetaProp ’s Block believes that what Briq is doing is unique in the construction diligence .
“ commonly when we mean about automaton in construction , we intend about machine on a jobsite . But Briq has turned that on its head and introduce to construction the approximation that robots can be used in the back billet to manage cost , appendage payroll , run prognosis , and perform all sorts of other routine but tiptop of import tasks , ” he said in a command . “ The construction community is on fire for this . They can descale an U. S. Army of digital robots in their occupation to identify where profit is fading ? And they ’re on call 24 hours a daytime , 7 solar day a week ? Yes please ! ”
While Briq is rivet on serving the general and strong suit contracting grocery in North America , it does have plan to blow up into young geographies in the coming years .
“ I think what we ’re really really excited about are n’t just the English language markets . I really do n’t suppose those are majuscule construction markets , ” Hamdy say . “ I ’m very concerned in the Middle East and Asia and parts of the non - English emerging market in Europe . That ’s really where we ’re moving forward strongly on . ”
Looking onwards , Hamdy is worked up about the theory of using conversational AI to apprise fiscal transactions .
“ That ’s follow in 2024 , ” he tell .
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