Buildersite wins Angel funding round

Buildersite, a web-marketplace for construction services for both homeowners and tradesmen has secured an Angel round of funding (amount not disclosed) led by Alex Hoye, former co-founder of GoIndustry which went public in 2006. He will chair the startup’s board. Also investing is The Accelerator Group, whose principals Robin and Saul Klein have invested in successful UK startups including Lovefilm, Agent Provocateur, Moo, and OpenAds. Joining them is Paul Birch, who co-founded social networking site Bebo, and Jamie Murray Wells who founded Glasses Direct.
Buildersite’s CEO Ryan Notz – who actually started out as a stonemason and builder himself – says the funding will go into expanding the web development and marketing teams. The news is encouraging for the UK startup scene, in that UK entrepreneurs are clearly using their own success to plough investment back into the market.

The domestic construction market in the UK is worth £10bn. Competitor sites tend to be about lead generation but Buildersite instead charges a success fee which is 5% of the project fee. This means the whole service can be free to the homeowner, and it can track bad builders and bar them from the system. Buildersite launched in mid-2006 and last year it had over 3,000 tradesmen on the site, so probably a lot more than that now.

Buildersite was one of five other startups which were selected for the Seedcamp event last year, winning some initial seed funding and mentoring.