Driive raises pre-seed round to build AI booking agent for home service trades
What's the deal? Lincoln, Nebraska-based DriiveDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has closed a pre-seed funding round to scale its AI booking and scheduling platform for home service contractors. The round drew investment from Nebraska Angels, NelnetDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Move Venture CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Luke HansenDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, founder and chief executive officer of CompanyCam. The company did not disclose the amount raised.
Driive's product, called Dot, answers inbound calls, texts, and emails around the clock, qualifies homeowners, checks technician availability against real drive time, and books appointments automatically. It targets HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, and other trades.
Why now? Roughly half of all inbound leads to home service contractors arrive after 5pm or on weekends, when most shops are off the phones. Industry research suggests 78% of homeowners hire the first contractor who responds — meaning missed calls translate directly to lost revenue.
Contractors spend billions each year on lead generation, then lose those leads to voicemail. "The trades are the largest sector of the economy still running on missed calls and sticky notes," said Quinn Small, founder and chief executive officer of Driive.
What could go wrong? The home services software market is crowded, and Driive enters at the pre-seed stage without disclosing its funding total — suggesting limited runway. Convincing trades businesses to trust an AI agent with customer-facing calls is a behavioural shift that could slow adoption.
Drive-time scheduling is a differentiator for now, but incumbents with deeper pockets could replicate the feature quickly.
The signal: Backing from CompanyCam founder Luke Hansen — whose late-growth-stage company is already embedded in contractor workflows — gives an early-growth startup like Driive a credibility shortcut and a ready-made distribution channel that most pre-seed companies lack. The investor mix of a regional angel network, a diversified financial services firm in Nelnet, and a dedicated fund in Move Venture Capital points to a deepening Midwest ecosystem willing to bet on vertical AI applied to trades — a segment where analogue processes still dominate despite the market's trillion-dollar scale.
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