Delray Beach-based startup Casa, which develops software for home improvement contractors, has raised a $1.2M pre-seed funding round. Investors in the round include Hustle Fund, GS Futures, and Chaos Capital.
Founded in 2020 as an on-demand pool service marketplace, Casa has pivoted a few times to eventually become a platform helping bring home improvement contractors into the 21st century.
A flat fee of $99 a month provides contractors with a variety of digital tools to streamline their online business processes, making them and saving them money along the way. Since launching its Beta in March 2021, the platform has picked up 700 contractors from all 50 states across 100 different trades including HVAC, roofing, pool construction, and hardscaping.
Founder and CEO Santo J. Leo told Refresh Miami that this pre-seed will enable the company’s rapid expansion. “We’re in growth mode right now,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that our motto is ‘move fast and break things,’ but rather ‘most fast and scale things.’”
Casa has plans to hire upwards of a dozen sales development representatives. Up to now, the startup has been built using low-code platform Bubble; however, Leo signaled that he hopes to find the company’s first product manager within the near future as well. In the long term, half of Casa’s hiring efforts will be focused on engineering talent, and the other half on sales.
Leo signaled that there has been significant interest in Casa from the investor community since having met many funders during last year’s Art Basel. Casa now has its sights set on a seed round, closing as soon as the end of March, with a Series A not too far down the road after that.
There are three main features to Casa’s platform. First is its ability to give users a functional and aesthetically-pleasing website with no coding or design necessary. This feature alone can potentially save users thousands of dollars, in Leo’s estimation. “They’re getting a beautiful, white-labeled website that they would be proud to show to their customers,” said Leo {pictured avbove].
Second is customer relationship management (CRM), which is integrated right into the contractor’s website. Casa’s platform includes features like quoting, contract management, invoicing, digital payments, social media, and marketing automation.
The third major feature is financing. Casa’s proprietary financing technology pre-qualifies over 85% of applicants without affecting their credit score. This easily-accessible financing option helps customers afford contractors’ services, while ensuring that contractors are paid on-time.
Casa also provides users with high-touch customer service, including a dedicated Account Manager. This can help ease the transition to the digital world – crucial in an industry where carbon-copy paper is still ubiquitous.
Features to come include more sophisticated digital contracts, payments, and banking options. “We want to let contractors run their entire business from one single login,” explained Leo. “They will be able to manage the lifecycle from customer acquisition to payment without leaving the platform.”
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