French construction and infrastructure bid management platform Saqara raises €9 million

Parisian construction and infrastructure bid management platform Saqara, formerly known as AOS, or Appels d'Offres Simplifiés, has raised €9 million in a Series A funding round. Like a host of other proptech/contech players, Saqara is pushing the construction industry into the 21st century by digitising a number of previously paper-based processes. The new funding is expected to support the firms’ international growth plans, particularly in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and North Africa. To date, the four-year-old startup has raised approximately €13 million in funding.

In an industry that’s traditionally been reluctant to change and happy to rely on the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mindset, Saqara would seemingly have its work cut out for itself. However, since launching in 2018, the company has seen over 4,500 projects launched, totaling over €18 billion of construction and infrastructure works pass through its doors. Nothing to sneeze at.

By reducing the reliance on paper and spreadsheets, Saqara is providing a platform to put the procurement process, quite literally, all on one page. In addition to the single source of truithiness, Saqara is also bringing environmental concerns into play by providing an enhanced visibility of the entire supply chain, ultimately allowing developers the ability to track material sourcing and tabulating a carbon footprint.

Saqara/AOS/Appels d'Offres Simplifiés’ Series A round was led by A/O PropTech and saw the participation of Activum SG, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignation, Concrete VC and angel investor Leigh Jasper.

“From the outset, it was clear that Alexandre and Thomas had the perfect combination of domain expertise, technical savvy and outrageous ambition to build something genuinely transformative for the construction industry,” comments Activum’s Gabbi Cahane. “In a short space of time, they’ve built Saqara into an indispensable tool that streamlines, standardises and supercharges the entire tendering process for everyone involved.”