Driive, the Lincoln, Nebraska-based AI-native booking and scheduling platform built for the home service trades, has closed a pre-seed funding round with investment from Nebraska Angels, Nelnet, Move Venture Capital, and Luke Hansen, founder and CEO of CompanyCam. The company is building what it describes as the scheduling layer for the trillion-dollar U.S. home services industry, targeting HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, pest control, and other home service contractors.
At the center of Driive’s platform is Dot, an AI booking agent that answers inbound calls, texts, and emails around the clock, qualifies the homeowner, checks technician availability against real drive time, and books the appointment in real time. The company said roughly half of all inbound leads to home service contractors arrive after 5pm or on weekends when most contractors are off the phones, and that 78% of homeowners hire the first contractor who responds. Contractors spend billions annually on lead generation only to lose those leads to voicemail.
Driive’s core differentiation is its drive-time scheduling engine, which books appointments based on where a contractor’s team already is, factoring in drive time, lead qualification, and post-sale scheduling. Most competing scheduling tools were built for virtual appointments rather than field-based businesses where every booking decision must account for technician location and routing. Early customers have reported reduced drive miles, increased daily appointment volume, and higher booking rates since adopting the platform.
Proceeds from the pre-seed round will be used to accelerate engineering hires, expand the go-to-market motion through its partnership with CompanyCam, and roll out Dot more broadly across the trades. Driive said the home services sector remains one of the largest segments of the economy still operating largely on missed calls and manual scheduling processes.
KEY QUOTES:
“This category has been waiting for someone to take it seriously. The trades are the largest sector of the economy still running on missed calls and sticky notes. Driive is the system of record for how a job actually gets booked.”
Quinn Small, Founder and CEO, Driive
“Scheduling is a huge need in the industry, and I believe in this team to solve it.”
Luke Hansen, Founder and CEO, CompanyCam
“So impressed with the early momentum that Quinn Small has established with Driive, and excited to see what he accomplishes as he expands his team and brings on more customers.”
Charlie Cuddy, Move Venture Capital
