Tiger Global Management led a Series B round funding Agora, which is a startup that provides a platform for materials management for contractors.8VC, Tishman Spyer, Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang, DST LeFrak, Kevin Hartz and Michael Ovitz all participated in the financing. This brings the total startup funding since its 2018 inception up to $45 million.In a world of glitzier tech, construction tech has never been seen as sexy. Construction is a major driver of the real estate and commercial industries. This in turn has a direct impact on all of us.The $10 trillion construction industry is still plagued by productivity problems. McKinsey claims that the industry's labor productivity growth has stagnated since 1947.Ryan Gibson and Maria Rioumine founded Agora to make it easier for commercial trade contractors order and track materials, automate data entry and provide a single platform through which all parties involved in the procurement process can communicate.The ultimate goal is to speed up projects and allow contractors to avoid delays by reducing costs. Agora believes that the SaaS platform will have a greater impact on the built environment, making it more efficient and affordable to build.Agora, a San Francisco-based company, is solving the problem in a niche manner that is popular with both contractors and investors. Agora does not attempt to solve all trades. Instead, it focuses on specific trade verticals one at a time. It started with electrical, and now it is moving to mechanical.In the last year, electrical work was worth more than $101 million. Rioumine explained to TechCrunch that all kinds of products are covered by our customers. We have customers who build power stations, hospitals, schools, classrooms, university campuses, churches, and even casinos. These contractors are so important.Agora's annual recurring revenue has increased by 760% over the past year, while its customer base has grown 6x in the same period. According to the company. It has tripled its workforce to 45 employees and now processes $140 million annually in materials volume for customers.Rioumine stated that the startup was not actively seeking Series B funding, but instead was proactively offering term sheets to investors.TechCrunch was told that a few investors who knew us well approached her about preempting the round. We had multiple term sheets 12 days after our first conversation.John Curtius, Tiger Global Partner, said that he was attracted to Agora's unique approach to trade.He believes that the startup is the future of construction procurement.Curtius sent via email that Agora solves a critical problem. Inefficient procurement processes and breakdowns in the supply chain cost billions of dollars every year.This platform allows contractors to create templates, pre-approve materials lists, and easily reorder frequently required items. It also offers a catalog that has more than 400,000 SKUs.Agora claims that by bringing together both office and field teams on one digital platform, Agora saves 75% of office team's time processing purchase orders and 38% of field team's time managing materials. The company claims that its technology could provide annual savings of up to $300,000.The company intends to use the new capital to hire across many teams and expand beyond 30 states into other trade verticals.Rioumine stated that there has been a significant underinvestment in technology in construction for a very long time. She said that the average technology spend in construction as a percentage of revenue is 1.5%. This is lower than the industry median of 3.3%.When we consider the size of this industry and how few productivity improvements have been made recently, I believe we now have an amazing opportunity to invest in technology to bring it to job sites and to trade contractors.
