New Orleans-based startup zlien has announced their latest funding, $5 million in growth equity in a round led by Altos Ventures. Knollwood Investment Advisory, Operating Venture Capital, and Cajun Kiwi Investments also participated in the round.
zlien is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that empowers a fair payment process in the construction industry. The platform offers a solution to managing mechanics lien rights by allowing those in the construction industry to exchange lien waivers, construction notices, and information.
The startup helps contractors and suppliers to developers and lenders through more than 300,000 projects annually worth billions of dollars in construction contract value.
“We’re building a fair construction payment ecosystem that everybody can trust,” says zlien founder and CEO Scott Wolfe, Jr. “Everybody on a project wants to trust one another, but the risks of failure and delay are expensive, and stakeholders are handcuffed to a mountain of protection positions. We’re shifting the paradigm in the industry from protection first to collaboration first.”
With this latest funding, the already rapidly growing zlien will expand its sales and marketing teams, while continuing to build its software.
“We see that industry participants are hungry for technology that will fuel growth and productivity,” said Ho Nam, managing director of Altos Ventures and new member of the zlien board. “zlien is innovating in an area – lien and bond claim security – that is saddled with manual processes and antiquated service providers. We were impressed with zlien’s vision to unify the entire chain of construction participants, and to build a more trusting environment that facilitates successful projects and payments.”