Bringing Intention, Clarity, and Speed to How the World Is Built
In every industry there are founders who build products to make things incrementally better. And then there are founders who step into massive, legacy industries and decide the entire system needs to be rethought.
Nicole Schmidt, Founder and CEO of Source, is firmly in the second camp.
Nicole spent years navigating the fragmented, analog world of commercial construction procurement, watching ambitious projects slow down under the weight of outdated workflows, opaque pricing, and thousands of disconnected vendors. While the built environment continued to evolve, the systems responsible for creating it remained stubbornly offline.
“I kept seeing the same problems repeat themselves,” Nicole says. “Teams were doing extraordinary creative work, but procurement was slowing everything down. There was no shared source of truth, no real collaboration, and an enormous amount of wasted time and budget.”
She became convinced there had to be a better way. That conviction became Source.
From Fragmentation to Focus
Founded in 2019, Source digitizes and streamlines commercial real estate projects through a single cloud-based platform. The company supports budgeting, product and material selection, and purchasing across hospitality and commercial development projects, enabling designers, developers, and operators to move faster without sacrificing intent.
Nicole’s approach to building Source has always centered on clarity. “Clarity wins,” she says. “In communication, in strategy, and in leadership. Teams don’t follow complexity. They follow purpose.”
That philosophy has shaped how Source operates and scales.
Architects and designers can browse verified products, collaborate on selections, order samples directly from representatives, and track everything from budgets to submittals in one system. The result is alignment across stakeholders and momentum that doesn’t get lost between concept and installation.
Growth That Matches the Ambition
Graham & Walker invested in Source in 2021, backing Nicole’s vision early. Since then, the company has seen outsized growth, with project purchasing volume increasing an average of 700 percent year over year. That momentum culminated in an $8.5 million Series A in 2023, led by M13.
Today, Source supports projects for major hospitality brands including Hilton, IHG, and Marriott, and continues to expand nationally across hospitality, housing, and tenant improvement sectors.
“The commercial real estate industry is long overdue for a solution that enables designers to collaborate in a truly digital environment,” Nicole explains. “Source is focused on that upgrade. Making product selection more collaborative, and then integrating purchasing in a way that protects timelines, budgets, and vision.”
The Emotional Math of Infrastructure Building
Ask Nicole about the hardest part of being a founder and she is candid.
“It’s carrying the emotional weight of the mission,” she says. “Balancing conviction with uncertainty, ambition with pragmatism.”
But that same weight is also what makes the work meaningful.
“The most rewarding part is watching the team win,” she adds. “Seeing people grow here and accomplish things that couldn’t be done anywhere else. And hearing from customers that our technology changed the trajectory of their project never gets old.”
That commitment runs deep. The Source team has collectively visited more than 70% of the hotels they help build, guided by the belief that great product instincts come from real-world context. “It wouldn’t be strange to find someone from our team helping clean up the night before an opening,” Nicole says. “We’re in it with our customers.”
Procurement as a Strategic Advantage
Nicole doesn’t see procurement as a transaction. She sees it as digital infrastructure for a trillion-dollar industry, shaping how projects move from vision to reality.
“The built environment shapes how people live, work, travel, and connect,” she says. “If we modernize the systems behind it, we can eliminate enormous waste of time, money, and carbon.”
Source is doing exactly that, integrating technology and AI where it matters most to reduce risk, surface insights, and accelerate action, without losing sight of the human decisions at the heart of every project.
Her vision is bold and specific. “We believe every building project, anywhere in the world, will one day begin with Source.”
What Comes Next?
When Nicole looks for inspiration, she looks to her customers tackling complex construction challenges and to her team, who consistently question the industry’s default assumptions.
“We’re just getting started,” she says. “Real estate and construction are undergoing a once-in-a-generation shift. Source is building the platform that will define what comes next.”
Curious to learn more? Source is growing and hiring across purchasing and engineering as it builds the future of procurement for the built environment.
At Graham & Walker, we back companies founded on ideas that break the mold, led by founders with a unique pulse on the problems they’re solving. Nicole is exactly that kind of founder, and we’re excited to support Source as it enters its next stage of growth and continues to define the future of procurement for the built environment.
About Graham & Walker
Graham & Walker is an early-stage venture fund rooted in a powerful founder community. We back pre-consensus founders and ideas that break the mold, combining capital with honest guidance, extensive networks, and a culture that embraces the unglamorous work of building. We believe in substance over hype and place founder success at the heart of everything we do.
