“Globes” has learned that start-up BuildCom raised $6 million at a company value of $18 million, after money. The investment was led by Evergreen venture capital fund, which was joined by Israeli investment company ZoomIt Holdings. Company shareholders from the initial financing round include Galileo Technology founder Avidgor Willenz (who announced the sale of Galileo yesterday for $2.7 billion to US company Marvell Technology), and US company BEA, which is currently traded at a valuation of $25.7 billion.
BuildCom established an e-commerce arena for the construction industry – materials and products manufacturers, suppliers and marketers, planners, engineers, architects, developers and contractors. The arena provides industry information and offers connections with other industry sources throughout the world.
When completed, the site will be global in scope, offering full management of procurements by means of a multilingual tool. The site is already operating in Israel, but plans to focus on the EU market.
BuildCom was founded in mid-1999 by Ron Brenner, who serves as CEO, and Oren Nauman, who serves as president. The company is located in Tel Aviv, and has a staff of 30. Brenner, a founder of Internet Gold, once led Pele-Phone’s marketing system, and located projects for Eurocom. Nauman was Nesher group business development manager and Ministry of Defense senior economist.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on 18 October 2000