Sydney software proptech Sitemate has acquired fellow Startmate alumni software startup Nomad Fleet in a deal worth $2 million.
Surprisingly, it’s the first time in Startmate’s 13-year history that two of the 250 startup to emerge from the accelerator program have teamed up in an M&A deal.
Both Sitemate cofounder Hartley Pike and Nomad founder Will Smith have civil engineering backgrounds, working on construction sites and the software platforms complement each other in the building and heavy industry sectors.
Sitemate began life as Dashpivot in 2015, cofounded Pike and Sam McDonnell, before rebranding as Construction Cloud. Two years later, they were selected for Startmate and went on to raise $1.3 million in 2018 as Sitemate. In November last year, existing investors Blackbird and Artesian. doubled down on the startup in a $7.5 million pre-Series A, led by Marbruck Investments.
The business has been on a massive growth spurt, growing from 18 employees to more than 70 in the 18 months to their last raise, and now are on track to meet a promise to double the headcount with 120 in the team.
Sitemate counts Boral, John Holland, Downer, Transgrid and Siemens Energy as customers, building software platforms to streamline paperwork and processes for the construction industry. It’s subsequently branched out into the energy and mining sectors to help them digitise paperwork and processes.
Sitemate’s flagship platform, Dashpivot Systems Cloud, streamlines and automates project delivery records and data flows.
Brisbane-founded, Sydney-based Nomad went through Startmate in the winter 2023 cohort, as Nomad Suite, streamlining construction fleet management, removing manual processes and providing access to real-time fleet data. It helps manage assets such as bulldozers to address maintenance and safety.
The same customers run the platforms side-by-side to digitise their paperwork and processes, and gather data on their operations.
Will Smith will join the Sitemate team and continue to spearhead the development of the Nomad platform.
Pike, Sitemate’s CEO, said the acquisition brings together two fast growing software companies helping the same built world companies, with similar founding stories [they also share similar paths in tweaking their startup names].
“Will and I both experienced the actual pain our customers experience every day because of paper-based, manual and fragmented processes, so we each went about building a proper solution to solve this pain,” he said.
“We now have 3 platforms, 120 employees and almost 2,000 customers, and we haven’t even scratched the surface on the problems we are trying to solve. But we’ll solve them faster with Nomad and Will on the journey with us.”
Smith said bringing Nomad under the Sitemate umbrella just made a lot of sense.
“There was already context and rapport between myself and Hartley, and as soon as I started seeing Nomad and Sitemate products being used side-by-side by a number of our customers, I thought, why not join forces to create an even better experience for our customers,” he said.
Sitemate investor Tom Humphrey from Blackbird said the acquisition of Nomad is an exciting development.
“It brings a new and valuable capability for asset management into Sitemate’s product suite and serves as an additional lever of growth into the business’ customer base,” he said.
“Additionally, it also demonstrates how effectively the Sitemate leadership and team are able to execute on inorganic opportunities as well as the core growth of the existing business.”
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