What makes a Belgian and a Danish startup decide to join forces and become one? In the beginning of 2019, APROPLAN and GenieBelt merged into one company, LetsBuild. This is the story behind the merger.

The big idea

GenieBelt focused on planning and progress communication, APROPLAN tackled on-site follow-up by digitising snagging, drawings and checklists. And then came the big idea. Why not create an end-to-end platform to support onsite communication, workflows and analytics to drive faster and more efficient delivery of projects? Why not combine the two so that scheduled tasks were linked to quality checking and approvals, for instance? Why not combine planning and progress reporting with day-to-day QHSE activities and link everything to the digital project drawings? For the customers, this would deliver a unique one-in-all tool for all the activities going on during construction. And so, the companies decided to merge.

The vision

The vision behind LetsBuild is to connect construction by fully digitalising the construction phase. Our customers tell us they want one tool for everything so they avoid having to adopt and use many different solutions. We want to deliver that. Even more importantly, we want to make sure that LetsBuild is always extremely easy to use. We understand how difficult it can be to get everyone to work with digital tools and we want to help on-site adoption.

The customer outcome

LetsBuild enables our customers to understand the status in real time, detect interruptions early and manage them appropriately. As interruptions cause 44% of delays across projects, this is a powerful advantage to have for any construction company. By using one tool to manage on-site planning and follow-up, our customers can also reduce admin burden and build time. They are also able to standardise their processes and collect and use valuable data from site to learn and improve their processes for more productivity and higher profitability.

How we will get there

We have already delivered the first milestone on that journey. Now, when a task is marked completed in the Gantt chart, it automatically triggers the corresponding quality check form and assigns it to the relevant person. This is the first step of a series of important milestones that will change the future of construction.

The dream is to create a great company – a company that not only makes a huge difference for its customers and the industry but which truly makes its mark as an exceptional place to work as well. This is what we work for every day.

The facts

LetsBuild has dual headquarters in Copenhagen and Brussels and offices in London, Paris, Lodz, Dubai and Berlin. 130+ employees from 20+ different countries work each day to help construction companies transform the way they plan and build. More than 11,000 users in 35+ countries use LetsBuild’s software solutions on their projects.

Frequently asked questions

Sending data from one application to another is a great way to bridge different tools but we found that there is a need for more than that – we want to build one true solution that seamlessly connects scheduled activities with all the QHSE tasks and to-do’s on a construction site. Also, our two organisations were perfect cultural fit so we decided to join forces.

We have dual headquarters in La Hulpe outside Brussels and in Copenhagen. Our holding company is located in Brussels. We also have offices in London, Paris, Lodz, Dubai and Berlin.

Our product developers are working with a series of key milestones to unify our solutions into one LetsBuild product. Already now, activities in the planning and progress reporting product are linked to checklists and forms in the on-site follow-up product. And there is more to come…

No, it was a 50/50 merger of equals. And the current management team also reflects that.

Klaus Nyengaard has been chosen to head up the company because of his proven track record in scaling companies. Klaus is also an angel investor and very active on the Danish startup scene. He co-founded GenieBelt in 2013.

We are growing quite rapidly – actually, by 2021 we expect to be hiring approx 30 people per month. We are always looking for great talent – have a look at our Jobs page.