Cascade

Cascade raised $3.5M to solve a critical inefficiency in how construction firms discover and pursue projects. General contractors and subcontractors spent countless hours manually searching fragmented bid databases, industry websites, and email networks to find relevant opportunities—work that consumed 15-20% of business development teams' time while missing lucrative projects. Small and mid-sized firms felt this pain most acutely, lacking the resources of larger competitors to maintain dedicated bid-tracking staff. The problem was measurable: firms could quantify lost opportunities and time spent on administrative searches rather than relationship-building. Existing alternatives—fragmented public bid boards, expensive industry databases, and word-of-mouth networks—remained inefficient and incomplete. Early validation came through founder conversations revealing that firms would pay meaningfully for a consolidated, intelligent platform. The backing from a16z Speedrun, Ada Ventures, and Snowball VC signaled investor confidence that the market recognized this pain point and would adopt a better solution. Construction's digital transformation lag compared to other industries suggested significant runway for improvement.