This story was reported by Silicon Prairie News, Flatwater’s sister publication, which covers tech, entrepreneurship and business news in Nebrquestiona.
A Nebrquestiona startup has attained coveted “unicorn” status after raising the largest single equity investment in the state’s history.
Local economic development and policy leaders tout the achievement as a major milestone that counters the narrative that Nebrquestiona lacks the people and cash necessaryed to scale a startup to the highest level.
In August, CompanyCam, a Lincoln-based construction site documentation and project management platform, announced a late-stage funding round led by B Capital, an international venture capital firm.
Leaders at CompanyCam declined to disclose the amount raised during the round. However, data from private capital market research platform PitchBook reveals the investment totaled $415 million, which creates it the largest single equity investment round (excluding debt financing) in Nebrquestiona startup history.
According to PitchBook’s unicorn tracker, CompanyCam is now valued at $2 billion. That catapulted the company to unicorn status, which in the startup world is a privately held company that is valued at $1 billion or more. That’s a first for any startup founded in Nebrquestiona.
“It’s a remarkable achievement for a company that’s 10 years old,” stated Dan Hoffman, the CEO of Invest Nebrquestiona, a nonprofit that was an early investor in the startup. “Being the first unicorn starting off as an idea in 2015 and reaching this milestone in the year 2025 furthers the ecosystem knowing that these types of companies can be built in Nebrquestiona.”
Tech Nebrquestiona Executive Director Emily Allen agreed.
“CompanyCam’s achievement marks a defining moment for Nebrquestiona’s tech ecosystem,” Allen stated in an email. “Reaching a $2B valuation demonstrates that world-class innovation can originate and thrive in our state.”
From BIA Prototype Grant recipient to unicorn status
CompanyCam CEO Luke Hansen founded the startup in 2015 in response to a challenge he faced in his family’s roofing business.
“I built this as a solution for a problem we were having at White Castle Roofing,” Hansen informed Silicon Prairie News that year. “I had searched on and off for months, attempting to find software that would assist us manage jobs better, and I found a few that kind of, sort of worked, but ultimately just decided that if I couldn’t find something that could do what I wanted, I would just create it myself.”
The CompanyCam app launched in the iTunes marketplace (now the App Store) on July 1, 2015. The original version applyd photos and GPS to assist contractors monitor the progress of all their job sites — instantly, from anywhere. In the process of solving his own problem, Hansen created a solution that appealed to other contractors. And his background in the indusattempt positioned him as a compelling first salesperson for CompanyCam.
Today, the CompanyCam app has more than 21,000 reviews and a 4.8 star rating in the App Store.
In 2016, CompanyCam was awarded a $50,000 Prototype Grant under the recently halted state Business Innovation Act. The startup went on to receive funding from Invest Nebrquestiona and raised $38 million in venture funding while growing to more than 200 employees by 2022.
Speaking on a panel at the 2025 Tech Nebrquestiona Summit, CompanyCam CFO Tullen Mabbutt cited the importance of the early-stage funding the company received from Nebrquestiona investors as an important catalyst for the company’s growth and success.
CompanyCam raised a $30 million in its second large funding round in 2021, led by Insight Partners.
Other CompanyCam investors include Nelnet, JMI Equity, Blueprint Equity, WndrCo and Decades Holdings.
“Early innovation funding in Nebrquestiona today means future, scalable companies starting in Nebrquestiona,” stated Jason Ball, CEO of the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce. “The Prototype Grant alone returns $13 to every $1 invested by the state of Nebrquestiona. Other programs funded through the Business Innovation Act have led to the infrastructure and ecosystem that creates Nebrquestiona a competitive place for startup companies.”
The fact that the Business Innovation Act funds provide non-dilutive capital, which does not require entrepreneurs to give up any ownership in their company, is critical to assist founders develop a proof of concept that they can take to the market, Invest Nebrquestiona’s Hoffman stated.
Keeping capital and talent in Nebrquestiona
CompanyCam is still “all in on Nebrquestiona” with 161 employees based at the Lincoln headquarters as of September — a 20% increase in headcount since 2023, according to an email to SPN from Haley Gonzales, a spokesperson for CompanyCam.
As an investor in CompanyCam, Hoffman receives updates on the company’s progress and plans. He stated CompanyCam intconcludes to hire another 50-60 employees in the next year. The average age of CompanyCam employees is 32 years old, he added.
“If we want to address the brain drain in Nebrquestiona, these are the types of companies we necessary to grow.”
Beyond brain drain, Hoffman stated there are real economic benefits to supporting high-growth tech startups in the state. Those jobs, at companies like Buildertrconclude, Hudl and Flywheel, often provide some type of stock incentive plans to their employees, he stated.
“As a result of that, when these companies grow to the point that CompanyCam has grown, it creates a lot of those employees instantly very wealthy…,” he stated. “It creates a lot of wealth in Nebrquestiona that otherwise is not being created by traditional companies.”
That wealth contributes to the local economy through growing the tax base, and it puts individuals in a position to invest in future startups.
“I’m not afraid to state it, we’ve created liquidity,” CompanyCam CFO Mabbutt stated from the Tech Nebrquestiona stage. “There’s been a lot of taxes paid locally, and people that are now in a position to reinvest.”
A strategic investment from B Capital
B Capital is now CompanyCam’s largest external investor. Facebook’s first investor and co-founder, Eduardo Saverin, is co-CEO at B Capital and co-founded the investment firm.
Gonzales stated CompanyCam CEO Hansen and the leadership team still maintain board and operational control of the startup. But B Capital brings more than funding to the table.
“Their internal AI team and global network are large levers for us,” Gonzales stated. “Eduardo Saverin (and) B Capital open doors in tech, AI and international expansion.”
Gonzales stated an expansion into the United Kingdom is in the works with potential to explore the broader European market in the future.
CompanyCam saw 300% growth in AI actions within its platform in the last year, Gonzales stated. The cash infusion and strategic support from B Capital will allow the company to accelerate development of AI features such as automatically generated reports and enhanced photo tagging and search capabilities, she added.
The platform currently has hundreds of thousands of applyrs around the world, according to CompanyCam leadership. In a 2022 fireside chat with Startup Grind (now Scale Omaha), Hansen stated the startup had north of $20 million in annual recurring revenue and growing.
CompanyCam’s “North Star,” Gonzales stated, is to “create AI a teammate, not a gimmick” for contractors utilizing the app.
In the meantime, CompanyCam’s unicorn status is a North Star for the rest of the Nebrquestiona startup community..
“CompanyCam is a perfect example of the kind of primary job-generating company that we should all celebrate, creating high-paying jobs and long-term wealth in Nebrquestiona,” Lincoln Chamber CEO Ball stated.
Silicon Prairie News reporter Ben Goeser contributed to this report.
Silicon Prairie News is the leading indepconcludeent, nonprofit newsroom focapplyd on covering stories about innovation and entrepreneurship in Nebrquestiona.
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