Sweeten, the home renovation matchmaker, has today announced the close of a $3.5 million Series A funding led by Navitas Capital. Overnight Capital and Gotham Gal Ventures also participated in the round.
Sweeten, launched in 2011, joins an entire cohort of renovation platforms that match contractors with customers, such as Pro.com, Red Beacon, and the more old-school Angie’s List.
But Sweeten approaches the situation a bit differently.
For one, Sweeten’s marketplace is closed off, with only the most qualified, pre-vetted contractors working jobs from the site. These contractors go through a 10-point inspection and have an interview with Sweeten before ever joining the platform.
But beyond a closed marketplace, Sweeten also follows projects from start to finish right on the website, so user’s can see real photographs from real jobs to help determine how they want to approach their own project.
Cofounder and CEO Jean Brownhill-Lauer said that Sweeten projects range from $15,000 to $1 million in value, with an average project value around $100K. As it stands now, Sweeten has approximately $300 million in deals posted to the website.
Sweeten makes money by taking a “success fee” from the contractor when the job is complete. This fee is a sliding scale based on the size of the job, but the company wouldn’t get any more specific than that.
Sweeten is currently only available in New York city, but the company plans to expand to two more cities soon with the help of that fresh Series A.