Lumber, the company behind the innovative workforce management platform for the construction sector, is excited to announce the official launch of its SaaS product, complemented by the successful closure of a $5.5 million seed funding round. Lumber’s fully integrated, purpose-built solutions are strategically designed to cater to the evolving compliance and workforce requirements of the construction industry.
“Small and medium-sized construction companies are grappling with significant challenges as they confront labor shortages and navigate a complex regulatory landscape, which tests the limits of their operational capabilities and profitability,” stated Shreesha Ramdas, Founder and CEO of Lumber.
“Lumber’s LLM-powered platform and AI chatbot offer management teams at SMB construction firms the opportunity to introduce a game-changing workforce experience.”
The construction industry is currently hindered by considerable technological constraints while struggling to meet intricate regulatory and labor demands. It’s a sector that operates under stringent regulations, with a continuous stream of new rules emerging at the federal, state, and local levels.
Labor shortages and scheduling complexities compel contractors to engage a diverse workforce from different unions, states, and employment arrangements. This diversity significantly complicates payroll, compliance, and overall management. Existing workforce management solutions in the construction industry range from outdated methods such as paper or Excel spreadsheets to overly generic general SaaS solutions that either offer limited functionality or require integration with multiple other software tools.
“Construction technology has lagged behind other industries, resulting in inefficiencies and waste in project execution. Many construction firms are primarily focused on staying afloat and meeting customer needs. The Lumber platform is making a unified workforce management vision a reality by integrating disparate data elements from various systems and project stages,” said Gerardo Rivera, Co-owner of Level 5 Drywall.
Lumber, equipped with an LLM (Legal Language Model) trained on extensive sets of regulatory and compliance data specific to the construction sector, aims to provide a streamlined user experience for the back offices of small to medium-sized construction firms.
“In today’s fast-paced and labor-constrained construction industry, payroll solutions for specialty contractors and the types of trade partners we use need to go beyond basic payment processing and adopt next-generation automation to stay compliant with regulations, boost efficiency, and enhance the employee experience,” emphasized Atul Khanzode, a management executive at DPR Construction, California’s largest construction firm. “I believe that Lumber is bringing much-needed automation to the construction industry with a modern, purpose-built payroll and time-tracking solution powered by a construction-specific LLM, with an initial focus on industry regulations.”
Pankaj Tibrewal, General Partner at Carbide Ventures, remarked, “The Lumber team brings together an exceptional blend of technological prowess and product expertise required to revolutionize workplace productivity in traditional industries.”
The seed funding round was led by Carbide Ventures and saw participation from Escape Velocity, 8VC, Sure Ventures, Converge VC, and Firsthand Alliance, as well as notable individual investors, including Atul Khanzode (management executive at DPR Construction), Eric Brown (former CEO of Dynamic Signal and current Growth Partner at Sumeru Equity), John Case (CEO of Accumatica), and Thiago Da Costa (Co-Founder and CEO of Toric and Lagoa).
The Lumber platform is now accessible to general contractors, subcontractors, and specialty contractors keen to leverage its integrated time tracking and payroll application to enhance their workforce management capabilities in the construction industry.
