Portrait No. 001
Jenny He
Founder & CEO
Ergeon Inc
Raised — $83M, series C
During my own home renovation, I felt what most homeowners feel: overwhelmed. The process was complex, communication was fragmented, and there was no standard way to keep both sides aligned. That gap creates anxiety and erodes trust. I became a licensed contractor to bridge the knowledge gap between construction and homeowners. When I met my co-founder, we aligned on a vision: use tech to create the transparency this industry lacked. Clear quotes, real scheduling, and actual project management, paired with remote teams supporting field crews. That vision became Ergeon.
In her words
“Ergeon exists to make the trades a career people aspire to, powered by technology that respects the craft.”
Chapter I
The toughest challenges you've faced as a founder.
Building a company is a wild rollercoaster and I realized quickly that being a Founder is less about managing a business but a constant fight for survival. Fundraising was the hardest. Asking others for money was deeply uncomfortable for me. In addition, I didn’t conform to the successful founder pattern of a young, male tech college drop-out! VCs would ask why I don’t build something in fashion or for moms. Even other founders are always shocked that I eventually raised $83M. For years, no large company wanted to partner with us because they thought Ergeon would not survive. It took six years to land The Home Depot. But once we got in, we expanded fast. That momentum brought Lowe’s onboard. To expand nationally, I personally became a licensed contractor in 22 states, taking numerous exams. Now we cover ~50% of the US households. We chose to be fully remote and geo diverse from day one, and stayed against the grain today. Over the past year, we made hard calls to completely replatform into an AI native company. Despite external nay sayers, our culture stayed steady and we ranked #25 on Forbes Best Start Up Employers in 2025.
Chapter II
Your vision.
I am obsessed with fixing the trust gap in construction. For homeowners, the experience is often intransparent, slow, expensive and full of stress. While contractors fear unstable work, late payments, and injury risk, all of which has led to decades of construction labor shortage. I believe that construction should not feel adversarial to home owners or contractors. Ergeon exists to prove that a fragmented, low-trust industry can be rebuilt with transparency, credibility, reliability and connection. By combining software, AI, and disciplined operations, we are making construction predictable and fair, while preserving the local human expertise. The change we are enabling goes beyond convenience. We are building an ecosystem where homeowners understand what they are paying for, installers can create stable livelihoods, and technology supports people rather than replacing them. My goal is to make construction an industry home owners can trust and contractors want their children to work in.
Chapter III
The impact you want to leave behind — for your industry, your community, and the women who come next.
Thirty years from now, I want Ergeon to have erased the stigma of the trades. Today, many contractors want their children to be like me, running a tech startup. I want to build a world where a contractor’s expertise is valued as highly as a software engineer’s, and where children take pride in inheriting their family’s business because we made the work sustainable and respectful. Ergeon will become a generational construction technology company: leaving a legacy where technology preserves rather than replaces the dignity of the craft.