SAN FRANCISCO — Roofr has raised $4 million in seed funding for a new type of roofing service that uses aerial imagery to provide customers with a free roofing estimate online.

The investment was led by Crosslink Capital, alongside Y Combinator, Ace & Co., Louis Beryl and other angel investors.

“We're very mission driven and our mission is to ensure every family has access to protect their home with an affordable roof,” said Richard Nelson, Founder and CEO of Roofr. “As a third generation roofing contractor, I’ve experienced the broken roofing industry first hand. Homeowners and business owners have no transparency into price and roofing contractors have difficulty sourcing high quality potential customers. Roofr aims to solve these issues.”

Nelson also told Crunchbase News that the roofing industry "is in desperate need of disruption" and "completely archaic."

Roofr uses aerial and satellite imagery to measure customer roofs and provide an instant, free roofing estimate. Roofr then connects customers with a vetted roofing contractor to do an in-person inspection, provide a final proposal and complete the work. Roofr provides a dedicated project consultant from beginning to end, ensuring the roofing project goes without headaches and that all parties are happy. (A cartoon video from the Roofr website explaining how it works can be viewed below.)

“What excites us about Roofr is their ability to bring a large, offline market to the digital age,” said Omar El-Ayat, Partner at Crosslink Capital and newest member to Roofr’s board of directors. “They provide a pain-free experience to consumers, while providing a suite of tools enabling roofers to grow and streamline their business. Richard’s deep domain experience gives us confidence this is the best team to build a business in the roofing market.”

Roofr says it helps local roofing contractors grow their business by connecting them to homeowners and business owners looking for a roofing contractor (only charging a fee to the roofing contractor if they sell the roof). Many other services charge the roofing contractor a fee just to view the potential customer’s information, according to the company, while also sending that information to countless different contractors, decreasing the ability to convert customers and wasting them money.  

In addition to connecting roofing contractors with high quality potential customers, Roofr said its long-term goal is to provide roofers with a host of free tools to streamline operations and boost profit. Roofr also plans to launch a free satellite measurement application for roofing contractors to more accurately measure and estimate roofs directly from their desk. No longer will roofers have to pay for expensive satellite imagery reports.

Roofr currently serves the the Bay Area, the entire state of Florida, and Ontario, Canada, and plans to use the funding to expand its reach to new marketplaces, including Texas, and to grow its engineering, sales and marketing teams.