Helping builders build
Our investment in Graneet.
Since Pawel and Christoph’s investment in Clio (which provides legal firms best in class software to run their business and was Point Nine’s #1 investment (!!)), our vertical SaaS portfolio has only grown further. It’s been more than 10 years since that first investment and since then, we’ve been lucky to see how transformative industry-specific software can be for SMBs across industries.
With 20+ investments in the space, we’ve seen that vertical SaaS has the ability to win very high market share given how specific it is to businesses’ workflows. We’ve also seen how important it is to nail your initial value prop and core product feature set and over time layer in more and more product features to become a full product suite for a business in any industry.
Construction, a core industry ready for disruption
One (very old school) industry we’ve been fascinated by for a very long time has been the construction industry. The industry contributes roughly 9% of the EU’s GDP and provides 18 million direct jobs. The industry is also very fragmented with circa 3 million construction companies in the EU. Most of these companies are SMEs that are responsible for the lion's share of the value produced.
At the same time, the industry is known for delays in projects and in payments, and small companies often struggle with cash management as they deal with multiple projects at the same time, relying mainly on excel and word to issue budgets and invoices, as well as manage their receivables across several projects. The only existing alternatives are legacy accounting software plugins built 20 years ago, which requires heavy implementation whilst not being very easy to use nor collaborative enough.
Construction companies deserve better financial management tools… Enter Graneet :)
Meet Graneet
Graneet is a SaaS solution for small construction companies to manage their finances. The software offers the CEO or owner of a construction company the ability to issue and manage quotes, invoices, and expenses. With Graneet, companies are able to win better projects, control how much cash they have outstanding in their balances, automate their receivables and make sure they know their margin on any project that is currently underway.
The platform is beautiful and super easy to use and ultimately becomes the key sidekick of the business owner becoming a solution that is used ongoingly throughout the month. The long-term vision for Graneet is to build a mini ERP for small construction companies.
Graneet is live in France and servicing all types of SMB customers; from general contractors to very specialised service providers.
Our thesis
We articulated our thesis around 5 critical points:
- A critical pain point in the industry: Financial management is critical for construction companies that suffer from very low margin (on average 5%) and late payments.
- SaaS for the masses: There are tens of thousands of small construction companies (<50 employees) in France only. Hundreds of thousands in Europe. Most of them rely on Excel for financial management, the rest rely on accounting software plug-ins that suffer from bad UX, low usage, and are not collaborative. It’s time for beautiful cloud software to take over.
- A networked opportunity: The industry is highly networked as there are always multiple construction companies on the same construction site (and project). We believe this will open the potential for virality and an inbound go-to-market motion.
- Fintech scaling vertical SaaS: Digitising these workflows will open the possibility to layer in financial revenues. Factoring in particular is relevant here as cash management is critical.
- A killer team for this opportunity: Last but not least, we’re big fans of this founding team. It’s very rare to find a founding team that combines skills and experience acquired at early-stage startups and construction companies. The Graneet team has built, scaled, and sold tech products but has also spent time working inside construction companies, understanding their day-to-day pains.
Vertical SaaS P9 Family
We’re super excited to work with Jean-Gabriel, Enzo, and Raphael and lead Graneet’s seed round alongside our friends at Foundamental as well as P9 family members Jack Newton, the cofounder of Clio, Alex Guinefolleau, the cofounder of Amenitiz, our Venture Partner and Eventbrite co-founder and CTO Renaud Visage and Arthur Waller, co-founder and CEO of Pennylane.
It’s awesome to see other vertical SaaS founders in our portfolio investing alongside us in the newest additions to the family and sharing their learnings and insights after years executing on the ground.
Welcome to the P9 family Jean-Gabriel, Enzo, Raphael, and the rest of the Graneet team!
Finally, if you’re building the next category-defining company in vertical SaaS, definitely give us a shout!
Ricardo and Louis
