This Atlanta-based software startup is helping building contractors move away from spreadsheets and whiteboards to track their equipment.
YARDZ is the brainchild of Jason Perez and Josh Schuyler, former construction managers. They launched the startup in 2018 after witnessing first-hand the inefficiencies in managing rented equipment from multiple suppliers.
“Things just got messy,” Perez said.
So they went about developing a platform that allowed managers to have visibility into their assets in real-time.
“It is built on automated intelligence that digests the multiple data sources being fed to contractors from their network of suppliers, their IoT devices, and financial systems,” he said.
This helps companies better understand exactly what equipment they have in their inventory and where it’s located.
“There is literally no parameter that YARDZ does not keep track of both on the rented and owned equipment side. This saves time and money,” he said.
The startup’s timing couldn’t be better.
After months of negotiations, the U.S. Senate this week approved a $1 trillion package to improve and modernize the nation’s infrastructure.
Many small construction firms are expecting a long-term boost in business, and YARDZ is hoping to capitalize on that.
“The infrastructure bill is going to create a significant amount of construction across the country that, frankly, is long overdue,” he said.
“Construction companies are going to benefit greatly from this boom ““ but only the ones that are internally prepared to take it on.”
There’s also room to scale the platform.
While originally intended for construction companies and crews, he said the platform can be adapted to a wide range of vertical markets, including aircraft manufacturing, farming, utilities, railroads, forestry, landscaping, logging, mining, and shipping.
Perez said the startup had a “soft raise” of $500,000 earlier this year and is already looking for more funds to scale.
“We are in the process of raising our seed round, and are concurrently being aggressively pursued by several noted venture capital firms,” he said.
“While we have some national accounts, we have a very strong focus on the Southeast United States,” he added. “We intend to expand our footprint to include a greater number of accounts nationwide.”
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