NuMundo Ventures is at the start of our journey with Buildpeer. I first met Mauricio Valdes, the co-founder and CEO of Buildpeer, at the Monterey office of Carlos Rousseau in September 2023. I was there to take a call when Carlos introduced me to a founder he backed as an angel.
Mauricio described his company and I said, “oh that sounds like the HubSpot of construction for Latin America.” As an early Hubspot user, I remember how much simpler it was than Salesforce. I thought if Hubspot continued to build their business over time, they would be able to compete with SalesForce.
I invested in Hubspot about a year after its IPO and I witnessed over the next 8 years how Hubspot executed with tremendous discipline to build an amazing company. I still own those Hubspot shares!
Mauricio’s core insight was that most construction management software from the US was too complex and feature rich for the LatAm market.
I learned why he started Buildpeer and how he worked on construction projects in the US and Mexico where he felt the pain of current software solutions. He and his co-founder Ernesto Gonzalez Fernandez then started building the company, launching an MVP, and then relaunched with v2.0 of their product.
One of my closest advisors on everything proptech/contech is Diego Bartoli. Diego worked with the team to accelerate their go-to-market strategy. After a few weeks, Diego told me it was early but he thought there was great potential.
Maurcio also has Nelson Koen, a professor at Stanford that I really admire, as an advisor.
Buildpeer is also fortunate to have the co-founder of Oculus VR, Brendan Iribe, as an investor and advisor. Brendan worked closely with the team as they re-built the product and launched version 2.0 in July 2023.
After many months of supporting Buildpeer, analyzing the construction market in Latin America, and helping the team build a new pitch deck, we decided to invest and back the company.
It’s very early but in the ~5 months of working with Buildpeer, they have grown ARR more than 3X, we have now introduced the team to LPs in NuMundo that can help them continue to build their GTM capabilities (e.g., Tony Macedo Hileman, Juan Cruz Antón Aguilar, Juan Pablo Jimenez Isaza), and are supporting them as they approach their next fundraise.
Most importantly, we are even more excited about the opportunity for them to build a valuable company supporting the $100-120B construction industry in Mexico and the $250B+ construction industry across LatAm.
In a full circle moment, Mauricio will be joining me and Larissa Fontaine (Chief Product Officer of QuintoAndar) as we present about proptech/construction tech in Latin America at Professor Koen’s class on March 12, 2024.
I am very excited to be backing Mauricio, Ernesto, and the entire team at Buildpeer for many, many years to come!
Luis Martin Diaz Juan Alfredo Pestaña Bernardo GamboaKaustubh PandyaAlice LeungAndres Garza VillarrealCarlos Rousseau
