Adaptive builds automation tools to speed up construction payments

The construction industry has a slow payments problem. Studies have found that it takes anywhere from two to three months on average for construction companies to get paid, due to factors such as delays, multiple payment layers and cost overruns.

The cost of sluggish construction contract payments climbed to $273 billion in 2023, representing 14% of the total project expenditures that year.

Matthew Calvano, along with Henry Bradlow and Francisco Enriquez, thought that the cause laid in back-office inefficiencies. So in 2021, the trio co-founded Adaptive, a platform that provides tools designed to simplify payments and accounting for general construction contractors.

“The construction payment chain involves multiple layers, including banks, developers, general contractors and subcontractors,” Calvano told TechCrunch. “We believe that this complex web, combined with the fact that most construction companies are small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) lacking financial expertise, are the primary drivers of the industry’s slow payments.”

Adaptive, which this week closed a $19 million Series A round led by Emergence Capital, delivers an array of workflow automations for financial management, including budgeting, expense tracking, accounts payable and electronic payments. Using Adaptive’s product, customers can upload documents like insurance agreements and payment requests in formats such as SMS and PDF and leverage automations to take action on these uploads, like approving requests and budgets.

“We’ve built several generative AI algorithms to automate the financial management and bookkeeping workflows unique to construction,” Calvano said. “Our primary competitor is the manual labor required to manage financials, typically supported by email, Excel, file sharing and the financial features of legacy project management software.

Adaptive’s other rivals include Briq, a startup with a similar financial workflow automation sales pitch; Beam, a fintech aiming to streamline payments, invoices and receipts for contractors; and MakersHub, which deciphers accounts payable data for construction companies.

But Adaptive has a healthy business by all appearances, with more than 280 construction companies on its customer roster ranging from custom homebuilders and commercial general contractors to real estate developers.

The near-term plan for growth is to focus on acquiring subcontractor clients by building tailored products for that segment, Calvano said. Medium-term, Adaptive — which makes all of its revenue through software at present — will explore monetizing different integrated payments, insurance and payroll functions, according to Calvano.

“Given that we manage our customers’ entire financial workflows, there are numerous opportunities for embedded finance, especially with our focus on SMBs that tend to be underserved when it comes to financial services,” Calvano said.

Andreessen Horowitz, Definition, Exponent, 3kvc, Box Group and Gokul Rajaram also participated in Adaptive’s Series A, which brings the startup’s total raised to $26.4 million. A portion of the proceeds will be put toward expanding New York-based Adaptive’s workforce from 29 to 45 by the end of the year, Calvano tells TechCrunch.