Dive Brief:

• Construction industry software startup Procore Technologies has achieved a valuation of $1 billion after its last $50 million funding round, which was led by Iconiq Capital, according to The Wall Street Journal.
• The cloud-based company, which has raised a total of $143 million so far, is now valued at twice what it was just a year ago, earning it the "unicorn" status of startups able to reach the $1 billion valuation mark.
• Procore CEO Tooey Courtemanche said the additional capital would be used to fund the company’s first international operations in Australia and Canada.

Dive Insight:

Courtemanche founded the company when, during the construction of his own house in 2003, he had difficulty communicating with the building team. From there, Procore developed an open platform through which on-site workers and managers can collaborate with Windows devices via the cloud.  Procore said it has a current usership of 1.5 million, represented by more than 2,500 clients in 92 countries. 

Last year’s round of funding saw the startup approach the value of a major competitor in the construction management software space, Textura. In January of this year, the publicly traded company boasted a market capitalization of almost $590 million. Just a few months later, technology giant Oracle announced in April that it had struck a deal to buy Textura for $663 million cash with the intent of incorporating it into a new business unit with its Primavera line of products.

Construction tech startups are consistently drawing industry and investor interest. Other industry startups scoring major investments recently include Fieldwire, a construction project mobile and web platform services firm that snagged a $6 million investment last year, and bid management startup BuildingConnected, which raised $8.5 million in November. Software firm Uptake, backed by Caterpillar, also drew attention last year when it was named Forbes’ 2015 hottest startup. And earlier this year, mechanics-lien management startup zlien scored $5-million in growth equity investment for its construction-payment and lien-waiver exchange platform.