Trayd, a New York City-based all-in-one back office operating system for construction contractors, has raised $10M in Series A funding led by White Star Capital. The platform unifies payroll, compliance, workforce management, scheduling, labor tracking, and job costing, handling union logic, prevailing wages, and multi-state rules. The capital will fuel national expansion and product enhancements.
ConTech Funding Surges Early 2026
Trayd's raise aligns with a $126M funding wave across six contech firms in early 2026, including Rebar's $14M Series A for AI HVAC tools targeting trade contractors. Miter previously raised $38M to expand HCM for field services. This momentum reflects investor focus on labor tech amid shortages needing nearly 500,000 new workers in 2026 per Construction Business Owner.
Payroll Drains Contractor Hours
US construction payroll totals $260B annually, with specialty contractors—outnumbering general contractors 400:1—spending up to 14 hours weekly on manual processing according to AlleyWatch. Complex union rules, prevailing wages, and multi-state compliance amplify errors and delays. Labor costs exceed 70% of project expenses, yet fragmented tools fail to integrate field data with books.
Unified Platform Respects Complexity
Trayd rebuilds back-office operations from the ground up for specialty trades, automating field-to-payroll flows for real-time job costing and 31x productivity gains. Unlike generalists like ADP or Procore, it embeds union fringe calculations and certified payroll. Customers report slashing payroll time from 14 hours to 27 minutes.
As CEO Anna Berger explained:
"What used to take 14 hours of manual work can now be done in under 30 minutes."
Field apps enable same-day pay and audit-ready reports, tested with firms like United General Contractors.
White Star Leads Growth Capital
White Star Capital led the round, with participation from Suffolk Technologies, Y Combinator, Bloomberg Beta, and RXR Realty—bringing total funding to $15M. The three-week close signals conviction in Trayd's 600% YoY revenue growth and traction with hundreds of contractors processing tens of millions weekly per Crunchbase News. Investors cite technical depth and founder-market fit as key.
ConTech Market Scales to $325B
The construction technology market stands at $164.2B in 2026, projected to reach $325.3B by 2036 at 7.9% CAGR per Future Market Insights. Another estimate pegs ConTech at $6.37B growing 12.58% CAGR via Mordor Intelligence. Trends like AI job costing and compliance tools drive capital into vertical software amid regulatory pressures.
Female Founders Bring Domain Grit
Co-founders Anna Berger (CEO) and Cara Kessler (CTO) lead a YC W23 alum team. Berger draws from her construction family roots and prior YC-backed Curtn; Kessler brings staff engineer experience from LinkedIn per YC. Recent hires fill fintech and sales gaps, growing the team from six to 32 post-seed.
State Expansions Target High-Growth Markets
Trayd plans rollouts in California, Texas, Florida, and Illinois, building on NYC compliance wins like Int. 0982-A. Funds support engineering hires, field app enhancements, and scaling to more union-heavy trades per Tech Funding News. Named customers like Tompkins Excavating validate product-market fit.