BuildDirect, the west coast firm that specializes in the manufacture and online sale of heavy duty construction and building materials has secured $16M in growth stage financing from OMERS Ventures, the VC arm of OMERS (the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System).
Founded in 1999, BuildDirect has survived the dot-com bubble, U.S. housing sub-prime mortgage collapse and other stagnant periods of low economic activity to continuously provide raw building materials (mainly flooring) in a never before seen online model. Using technology to calculate the transportation costs and quell the supply chain issues that are commonplace in the building materials industry, the Vancouver based firm has become a hit with large scale contractors and do-it-yourself types alike.
They are now considered to be North America’s largest such firm, and given the estimated $17 billion flooring industry in the U.S. alone, the e-commerce business is looking to expand both their team and product lines to better serve their customer base. The company currently has 8 warehouses throughout the U.S. to minimize costs and efficiently deliver heavy materials that are commonplace in the construction industry.
OMERS Ventures is clearly hopeful that BuildDirect’s business model and industry knowledge will allow them to continue to grow and attain market share in both the building supply market and related industries alike.
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[…] amounts of money in promising Canadian firms including $20M in HootSuite Media Inc., $16M in BuildDirect and $20M in Vision Critical Communications. The firm was also a participant in Desire2Learn’s […]