Home renovation projects can be unpredictable for customers and builders alike. Meanwhile, small contractors hardly ever use modern software and home renovation giants, like IKEA, tend to use old software. UK startup Beams thinks it can solve this conundrum and has now raised a $9 million Series A funding round to solve the problem. That brings the total to $13.3 million so far. The latest round was led by ETF Partners, with participation from investors Giant Ventures, first-minute capital and Borusan Ventures. Beams has a pricing engine that predicts how much a project will cost and how long it will take, compares it to more than 6,000 previous building projects, then uses photographic scans and 3D lasers to build a detailed model of the house to plan renovations. Founder and CEO Hayden Wood was at the renewable energy startup Bulb (later bought by Octopus Energy from administration) when he first encountered the problem solved by Beams: “I saw how the friction around making the house more energy efficient,” he told TechCrunch . “Projects are often too risky or complicated for consumers, which means that many avoid making improvements. I know that if someone can simplify the process and reduce the risk, the more people can complete the upgrade and make the house greener. Realizing how little software used in the renovation process, especially when compared to commercial building projects, which decided for the residential construction sector has been held again by this outdated approach. Therefore, Beams is a managed market for customers and builders to find each other, adding the software home renovation process to be more predictable and more efficient. Proprietary pricing engine predicts how much a project will cost and also checks builders before joining the market and after each project. “We have been operating since September 2023. At that time, we have sold more than £ 4 million jobs. We are currently active in 130 renovations and have completed 25, “said Wood. Of course, there are competitors. They include kitchen companies like Neptune, Plain English, Reform, Uncommon, Devol, Wren and Magnet. And in the UK, the lead-gen website of merchants such as Checkatrade helps contractors get the job done But, says Wood, “there is no player in the market that provides an end-to-end solution for renovations from design to construction.” Beams enters the renovation market worth £380 billion in Europe and £5.5 billion in London alone. The company is now planning to accelerate the development and growth of its products in the UK and Europe. But what happens if the plan goes wrong? breakeven, so that if the plan does not work out and growth slows, we will stabilize spending and experiment with other business models,” said Wood. Commenting on the funding round, Lucy Rands, Partner at ETF Partners, added in a statement: “Hayden and the team have built a full suite of services that go beyond a simple energy assessment. The solution seamlessly integrates sustainability and practical home improvement to help modernize the aging housing stock in the UK and Europe.
