Ambar has raised a large Series C round of around $36 million. The round was co-led by Brazil-based Echo Capital and Oria Capital.
The aim of Ambar was to use technology to make the civil construction process more efficient. The company says it has raised R$360 million in equity funding. CEO Bruno Balbinot estimated it to be $100 million.
The $100 million figure is higher than the current equivalent of R$360 million in dollars, but figuring out that number is difficult because the exchange rate has varied over the years. It doesn't account for the fact that the company raised venture debt.
Ambar now has a significant amount of capital to execute its plans. Balbinot explained that the startup plans to use the proceeds to boost the digitization arm of its business, for which it sees a strong need across Latin America.
Balbinot said that Ambar is most present in Brazil, where Spanish-speaking Latin America is driving some of its revenue. The home country of the startup is the largest market in the region, and Brazilian Portuguese acts as a competitive advantage.
Ambar has over 500 active clients according to the site. Balbinot told me that there is more of a learning experiment in the three locations that are located in the U.S. It is present on 1,500 building sites in Brazil.
Some media outlets have compared Ambar to Lego for the construction sector due to its plans to boost industrialization.
Ambar is not a general contractor. Balbinot said in Portuguese that their angle was to partner with those who build. He backs Ambar up with its unit economics, which are much higher than in the construction sector.
Ian and Balbinot have an unexpected source of inspiration. They hope to bring the same kind of process-driven approach to the construction sector that they did with Volkswagen.
Making the construction business more efficient is one way to make it more sustainable. Ambar is reducing waste by using more human and material resources.
This is an issue that its investors are committed to. The Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) section of Oria Capital explains that the company aims to contribute with the main sustainable development objectives proposed by the UN.
Guilherme Weege, a board member of Ambar, is a member of the United Nations Global Compact initiative. The CEO of the fashion group is one of the business leaders who signed the initiative.
Both funds have portfolio success stories that Ambar would like to emulate. Weege's family office backed a Brazilian company that recently IPO'd on the B3 stock exchange. Oria's third fund of $100 million financed a follow-on investment into Zenvia, which went public last July.
Balbinot said that Ambar will double the number of simultaneous construction works with applied Ambar products and win 970 new clients in the year 2022.
Balbinot and his team plan to make the IT side of their business a priority. Balbinot said that the startup wants to remove fragmentation and let its clients access everything on one platform. If there were ten applications and many people controlling them, we would offer everything unified with the same login.
