Proptech Startup Clearstory Closes $16M Series B Round

Construction industry software company Clearstory announced Thursday that it closed a  $16 million Series B financing round. The latest round brings the startup’s total capital raised to $35 million.

Prudence, an early-stage venture firm that invests in technology companies, led the round, with participation from Industry Ventures and existing investors Jackson Square Ventures, Building Ventures, GS Futures and Cloud Apps Capital Partners.

Launched in 2018, Walnut Creek, Calif.-based Clearstory bills itself as the construction industry’s only change order communication platform, helping owners and contractors of all sizes and types coordinate their out-of-contract work.

“The way our software works is companies invite each other to the platform to collaborate on how the contract works,” Cameron Page, CEO and founder of Clearstory, said. “So there’s a network effect behind it. The combination of landing big companies and then having them continue to invite other trade partners to the software has resulted in our seeing a lot of growth in platform usage and in terms of revenue.”

Clearstory’s network has companies sharing more than 19,000 change orders worth over $850 million monthly. The company now counts 13 of the 25 largest general contractors in North America as customers, including Kone Elevators, Performance Contracting Group, Suffolk, Clayco, Barton Malow and Swinerton.

The company will use the latest funding for “continued investment in R&D,” said Page. “We have a wide range of customers and customer needs. To meet the demand and deliver a world-class product we need to keep making investments there. On top of that, we want to keep pushing the envelope and be cutting edge in bringing new things to our product. So there’s a ton of things we can automate both with better workflows and better automation.

“Also, we’re going to begin leveraging AI into our product in terms of automatically categorizing change order requests and automatically reviewing change order requests. There’s a bunch of things that we’re going to start to build in there.”

While most companies in the commercial construction industry have financial software that includes change order management, essentially tracking changes in a company’s budget, Clearstory is unique in that it helps to align companies trying to collaborate outside their internal private financial software on outstanding orders, said Page.

The company’s platform reduces the administrative burden through automation and integrations with many leading construction technology platforms, including Procore, Autodesk, Vista, CMiC, Sage and HCSS. Clearstory has seen many customers integrate its software into their standard technology stack, mandating use of the platform on all new construction projects, according to the company.

“Clearstory is hands down one of the most impactful companies that we have ever come across in the construction tech sector,” Jordan Viniar, a partner at Prudence, said in a statement. “The company is taking a change order process that represents 10 to 20 percent of industry-wide construction spend but is entirely devoid of technology, and delivering a solution that drives collaboration and transparency, saving their customers millions of dollars in lost fees and cost overruns.”

Philip Russo can be reached at prusso@commercialobserver.com.