BrightGo – a modern janitorial software company – recently announced it closed a $3 million seed round co-led by Costanoa Ventures and Index Ventures. And the company already has customers across the U.S. and Canada that do janitorial services for national supermarket chains, retail stores, and malls, among other commercial properties. And the company plans to use the funding round to fast-track product development.
Janitorial workers make up the fifth largest job category in the U.S. And these workers are at the forefront of ensuring office buildings, schools, supermarkets, and storefronts are clean, presentable, and safe every day.
With the smartphone now ubiquitous among the janitorial workforce, BrightGo is utilizing a more intuitive interface and mobile app integration to make it easy to manage large employee groups across multiple remote locations. And business owners have access to a centralized dashboard to manage scheduling, attendance tracking for payroll, inspection systems, and an in-app employee communication portal. Employees can use a smartphone to clock in and out and confirm their schedules, with more functionalities set to roll out next year.
BrightGo was founded this year by former engineering leader Fong, a second-time founder who honed his engineering skills at Meta (Instagram) and Dropbox while Saagar Deshpande joined from Asana and EDO, a data, measurement, and analytics software company. Before launching, they partnered with prospective customers to work in the field and embed themselves in every aspect of the business, from cleaner to manager, to better understand the unique needs and expectations of the janitorial industry.
KEY QUOTES:
“The janitorial industry has been underserved by the tech industry for more than 30 years, yet employs millions of workers across the U.S., The janitorial tools currently available are hard to use and are often either cumbersome and clunky or don’t talk to each other well. At BrightGo, we are building the first janitorial platform that is both comprehensive and incredibly easy to use for the cleaner and the owner. It sounds simple, but in reality nothing has delivered on that to date.”
— Gerald Fong, Co-Founder and CEO of BrightGo
“Before, every day at 5 p.m., I was waiting for more unhappy calls from property managers. Now with BrightGo, I can check before I have dinner, and know that our clients in the evening will all be taken care of. We’re not going to get any calls that day that our employee didn’t show up. It’s very easy now to see we’re doing a good job with all our clients.”
— Michael Anastasi, Chief Operating Officer of Cleantech Services Group, a business running since 1996 that cleans over 400 locations in British Columbia
“BrightGo is revolutionizing a sector that has been overlooked by tech for decades, but it’s a top five job sector where software can make a huge difference. The team behind BrightGo has innovated with advanced technology that’s just right for both workers and their employers, and is replacing tools that haven’t evolved with its user base in decades. BrightGo is bringing the janitorial industry into the future.”
— Mark Selcow, Partner at Costanoa Ventures
“It’s the ability to have a conversation with BrightGo and walk away knowing that they not only understood the technical aspect [of what we do] but also they fundamentally understand the concept behind why (we do it). They are going to look at it from the technical perspective and the overall picture, which, as the CEO of the organization, is incredibly comforting to me. I don’t have to feel as though I’m chasing information to understand where we’re at and why we’re doing certain things.”
— Joe Pereira, CEO and founder of Integrity Maintenance Solutions, a janitorial services business operating in Northern California and Nevada
“Gerald and Saagar embody vertical software founders that we seek to back. They combine their experience building high quality software with a deep desire to understand their customers and their operations and how software can improve things. They have purposefully navigated to commercial cleaning, a very large industry that comprises three million workers in the U.S. and one that has been underserved with technology for decades. Their early customers are welcoming them with open arms and the team has already delivered software that is now making a difference daily.”
— Damir Becirovic, Partner at Index Ventures
