The green industry is facing a number of major challenges lately, and as result demand for software and integrated payments solutions is on the rise.
First, by “green” we’re talking about landscaping, lawn and tree care, irrigation, snow removal and landscape supply. It’s a massive market, representing $179 billion and comprises over 870,000 businesses in the United States alone. These business owners are increasingly turning to software to create operational efficiencies, boost profitability and improve customer satisfaction.
A variety of factors are accelerating the adoption of vertically focused business management software and digital payments by the green industry. First, consumers and businesses alike are looking for more transparent and efficient digital workflows to improve how they engage and communicate with one another. Second, as businesses expand – with more employees and service lines – they increasingly need tools to automate and simplify their operational processes. And if that isn’t enough, today’s rising inflation is further forcing these businesses to be more efficient and to more cost effectively serve customers in the face of an already tight labor market and margin pressure across the industry.
This is why today we’re excited to announce that FTV Capital has led a $74 million investment in SingleOps, the leading all-in-one business management software designed specifically for the green industry. By automating leads and estimates, scheduling and routing, billing and invoicing, labor and material tracking, job costing and business analytics, customers ranging from small local businesses to large national brands rely on SingleOps’ mobile and cloud-based SaaS platform to manage sales, their back-office operations and their field workforce, removing paper based and manual workflows.
With this investment, FTV will partner with SingleOps to deepen its platform functionality, increase investments in client-centric growth initiatives and further scale its payments and other financial services capabilities.
While the green industry is evolving as a whole, what SingleOps recognized from day one is that businesses in this industry have unique pain points that require purpose-built vertical solutions, as opposed to various horizontal solutions. Many green industry businesses offer multiple services that can vary seasonally – e.g. landscape maintenance, landscape design/build, tree and plant care, lawn care (fertilization/seeding), snow removal, ground cover, and the list goes on – resulting in greater operational complexity and often a medley of point solutions being used. Additionally, there’s the intricate coordination that’s required between multiple players and teams: sales estimators who draft proposals, various crew workers who execute tasks, office managers who orchestrate staffing and projects, and business owners who analyze data and oversee all business operations.
It’s a complicated picture, and SingleOps delivers software that simplifies and automates this complexity through an elegant combination of product depth and breadth and platform ease of use and configurability, delivered by a team of domain experts who intimately understand the needs of green businesses. This consistent focus and the company’s deeply customer-centric DNA have propelled the company to become a leading software provider for the green industry, evidenced by the more than 400 percent revenue growth over the last three years and a rapidly growing list of customers who have used the platform to process over $2 billion in revenue.
We look forward to bringing to bear the FTV platform, our vast network of relationships and our experience in successfully scaling vertical software and integrated payments businesses like Neon One, Plate IQ, Vagaro and Xplor to help SingleOps expand its offering and empower its customers to operate and grow more successfully.