Our Mission

Shepherd's mission - improve the safety and productivity of the construction industry by advancing the use of technology on job-sites.

About us

Shepherd is a YC and venture backed InsurTech startup for the commercial construction marketplace.

The construction industry is one of the largest and most important industries in the world. It creates the physical spaces where we live, work, study, and entertain. Inherently, construction is an extremely high risk occupation. The complexity, scale, and inconsistent nature of most projects makes it difficult to predict outcomes. As a result, the role (and cost) of insurance in construction is outsized when compared to other industries.

In the last decade, over $5B+ of venture capital has been invested into advancing construction technology in order to make projects safer, more efficient, and more predictable. Adoption of these tools (both hardware and software) by contractors is growing exponentially each year. But the underwriting models which evaluate and price construction insurance have failed to integrate this new available data.

That’s why we are building Shepherd.

Our value prop is twofold: create a fast, digital, and user-friendly experience for buying insurance in construction. At the same time, we’ll begin to break the traditional underwriting mold by leveraging data and technology to better understand, predict, and price construction risk.

Our team

Modernizing construction insurance requires a specific combination of skillsets, domain expertise, and backgrounds. Our founding team has both the credibility and track records to deliver world class software to support a profitable underwriting program.

• Justin and Mo originally met in the On Deck Fellowship program and both live in the Bay Area.
• Steve has known Justin for many years from within the construction risk community
• Justin's coming off a prior exit in construction tech - he was co-founder / CEO of TradeTapp, which was acquired by BuildingConnected and then Autodesk.
• Mo led several internal engineering teams at Airbnb, including a no-code CMS that powered all of the company's marketing campaigns (2B+ per year).
• Steve was most recently EVP Construction Practice Leader at Chubb - one of the largest insurers in the construction industry. He brings 16+ years of underwriting experience to our team and a long track record of managing profitable programs in construction insurance.

Together, we're bringing a fresh perspective to construction insurance. Technology is the answer for many of the efficiency, safety, and productivity issues that plague the construction industry. However, true gains in these areas can't be realized until stakeholders like insurance companies align with this vision. Shepherd is the bridge between construction tech and underwriting - a connection that is long overdue.

Investors & Angels

We formed the company at the beginning of 2021, but are moving quickly:

• YC Winter '21 batch participant
• $1M pre-seed financing led by Susa Ventures
• Angel participation from insurtech, construction, and startup including Sam Hodges (CEO @ Vouch), Ty Harris (CEO @ Openly), Spike & Gordon (founders of Newfront), Mike Curtis (fmr VP Eng @ Airbnb), Ryan Delk (CEO @ Primer), AirAngels (Airbnb alumni syndicate)