Last Week in ConTech - 19 February 2024
Building a strong Customer Support function + Startups working as subcontractors
In this issue there are:
15 Startup Fundings
9 Regulatory and Policy Changes
1 New investment funds
4 Acquisitions
9 News articles
Reading time: 11mins
Startup Funding
Building Electrification
Arch, a San Francisco startup, raised $6.2m in seed funding. They provide a data intelligence platform for HVAC contractors assisting with the analysis and design of HVAC systems (predominantly heat pumps) to provide more accurate estimates. More here.
[Hiring - 1 role in Software, 1 role in Operations]
Notes:
By 2030, 25 US states have a goal of installing 20m heat pumps.
9 of these states want 90% of residential heating, cooling and hot water equipment to use the technology by 2040.
23,000 more technicians are required to meet the workload.
Decarbonization / Climate
Pathways, a Massachusetts startup, raised $2.5m in pre-seed funding. They provide carbon tracking software for the construction industry by automatically generating Environment Product Declarations for building materials through ingesting data from a customer’s IT infrastructure around raw material inputs, transportation to site and manufacturing processes. More here.
[Hiring - 1 role in Software]
Notes:
Carbon emissions are classified in the following way:
Scope 1 refers to direct greenhouse from sources controlled or owned by a company.
Scope 2 refers to indirect emissions such as electricity, heating and cooling.
Scope 3 refers to emissions from supplies and supply chains such as organizations supplying goods and services.
Scope 3 emissions can be quite difficult to measure and understand for organizations but are increasingly required to meet client and regulatory requirements with proposed mandatory Scope 3 disclosure legislation in the EU and US making carbon tracking software focused on this segment valuable.
Mitiga Solutions, a Spanish startup, raised funding (undisclosed). They help businesses better understand, predict and calculate the impact of climate change and adverse weather events to future proof assets. More here.
[Hiring - 2 roles in Sales, 1 role in Software, 3 roles in HR, 1 role in Marketing, 5 roles in Other]
Robotics
Monumental, an Amsterdam startup, raised $25m in funding. They build autonomous bricklaying construction robots to help contractors address labor shortages and rising costs. More here.
[Hiring - 3 roles in Software, 2 roles in Operations, 4 roles in Other]
Notes:
Contractors hire Monumental as a subcontractor to bring the robots to complete bricklaying tasks alongside humans (vs. selling their solution to the contractor).
This approach removes risk in two ways:
Financial risk as contractors do not purchase and operate the machines.
Technical risk as contractors do not need to learn, train and validate the tech before purchasing i.e. no pilots - they follow their standard subcontractor onboarding flow.
Procurement
Nuqlea, an Argentinian startup, raised $750k in Seed extension funding. They provide a B2B marketplace for the construction industry connecting the builders, manufacturers, financial entities, logistics firms allowing projects to be managed via their ‘AI powered studio’ and purchase orders and deliveries tracked via their platform. More here.
Doxa, a Singaporean startup, raised funding (undisclosed). They are building a digital procurement platform for the construction and real estate development industries where all transaction data is tracked and analyzed providing data points for credit scoring. More here.
[Hiring - 2 roles in Sales]
Education / Labor
Mia Share, a Wyoming startup, raised $6.5m in funding. They provide payments and collection services to trade and technical schools by offering fair education payments through income based payment plans, zero interest payment plans and smart invoicing. More here.
[Hiring - 1 role in Operations]
Notes:
The construction industry requires ~500k additional workers on top of the normal pace of hiring in 2024.
Solutions focusing on low cost and accessible trades education are necessary to address this.
If you are interested in helping out - Maximiliano Sanchez is building a next generation charter school to engage young, bright, diverse talent at scale and address the labor shortage. More details here.
Contracts
Document Crunch, raised $9m in Series A funding. They provide an AI driven contract intelligence platform for the construction industry supporting users in identifying critical risks and empowering users in understanding what’s in their construction contracts. More here.
Notes:
Document Crunch offers an onboarding and implementation process unique to the needs of each customer who signs up.
They also provide dedicated account management support to ensure their platform is successfully operationalized into an organization including quarterly business/performance reviews for alignment.
My perspective:
In construction it is common for a startup to win a pilot project for a company but then not have the solution adopted throughout the organization.
The reason is that construction is not a ‘set and forget’ sale. The most effective startups empower their customer support teams (usually staffed by industry professionals who have jumped to the other side) to support the implementation of a solution.
If a solution is successfully operationalized, adopted and proven to provide value to engineers on a project, the solution will be dragged by an engaged engineer on every project they work on.
This is important as construction firms generally have a matrix organizational structure. Every project in the company could have its own organization structure, technology and processes (with some level of company standardization) i.e. each project is its own ‘company/entity’.
Startups should focus on increasing the number of projects their solution is used on within the same company.
Network connectivity
Skylo Technologies, a Californian startup, raised $37m in funding. They are building direct to device satellite connectivity services for industries which depend on remote infrastructure providing a new way to connect devices via existing satellites, but without extra antennas or bulky equipment. More here.
[Hiring - 8 roles in Software, 1 role in Sales, 1 role in Marketing, 1 role in HR, 1 role in Product]
Notes:
Remote project sites often have issues with internet connectivity and this service provides a solution without significant hardware upgrades.
Additionally, the solution can be used to connect to low-bandwidth Internet of Things hardware which are commonly used as remote sensors in the construction industry.
Safety
Fyld, a London startup, received £1.2m in grant funding. They provide a platform to improve the safety and efficiency of field teams by transforming video and audio footage into real time workflows, video risk assessments and analytics dashboards to eliminate paperwork and save time. More here.
[Hiring - 1 role in Sales, 1 role in Operations, 1 role in Marketing, 1 role in Support, 1 role in Other]
Transportation
Vapaus, a Helsinki startup, raised €15m in funding. They provide mobility benefits such as bikes for employees. More here.
[Hiring - 1 role in Finance]
Notes:
A new trend in the micromobility market is the rise of B2B2C companies.
Companies sell micromobility services to companies who then offer healthy lifestyle options to their employees rather than selling directly to the public.
Grid Infrastructure
Fever, a Swedish startup, raised $10.8m in seed funding. They help utility companies, electric vehicle manufacturers and data centers building their own virtual power plants. More here.
Notes:
Virtual power plants (VPP) are networks of small energy producing or storage devices which are pooled together into one entity to serve the electricity grid.
These are required as due to renewable energy sources the grid is increasingly decentralized ie. local battery storage and rooftop solar vs centralized power plants.
VPPs allow distributed energy resources to be pooled together to meet demand or store excess energy.
Grouping decentralized energy assets into VPPs, coordinating with grid operators to understand when VPPs must be utilized to meet demand/store excess energy requires advanced software ‘orchestration’ between thousands of small scale energy assets and existing systems.
This area of grid tech will receive increasing funding in line with increased government infrastructure and grant spending on clean energy sources for households/buildings.
Related:
Consulting
Contollo Group, a UK startup received investment (undisclosed). They are a building consultancy offering services in cost management, project management and MEP design and planning intending to use the funds to undertake a UK focused buy and build strategy to support the business in servicing demand for tech-enabled smart buildings. More here.
Home Construction
Higharc, a North Carolina startup, raised $53m in Series B funding. They provide a cloud platform for homebuilding operations including automating estimating and purchasing processes, designing homes and generating construction documents. More here.
[Hiring - 2 roles in Software, 1 role in Sales, 1 role in HR, 1 role in Product, 1 role in Other]
Other
Loamist, a Californian startup, raised $1m in pre-seed funding. They help companies access and track waste biomass sources using software to digitize the supply chain. More here.
Notes:
Waste biomass comprises parts of plants and forest trimmings.
It is used to make renewable fuel sources for aviation, diesel and green hydrogen, can be used in the manufacture of commodity plastics, cement and steel and as a cost-effective and sustainable source of energy on construction sites.
Waste biomass can also be sourced from construction waste on site.
Regulatory and Policy changes
Washington, DC, readies tax abatement program for commercial-to-residential conversions
The program provides a 20 year tax abatement as an incentive for property owners to convert all/part of their property to residential uses in the downtown area.
The conversions must yield a minimum of 10 housing units during the abatement period.
FiberLight pours $20M into autonomous highway project in Texas
FibreLight, a fiber network infrastructure provider is constructing a 100-mile fiber network along Texas State Highway 130.
This will provide high speed 10 and 100 Gbps connectivity to Public Infrastructure Network Nodes (PINNs) across 92 miles of the highways.
PINNs are small data centers to house equipment and integrated intelligent infrastructure to connect to autonomous vehicles, farming equipment, robotic machinery etc.
The investment is being used to create the region’s first intelligent infrastructure economic zone.
Related:
DOE Launches $2 Million Prize to Advance Cost-Effective, Energy-Efficient Commercial Windows
The prize is to encourage production of high-performance, cost-effective secondary glazing systems to improve efficiency of commercial windows.
40% of US commercial buildings have single pane windows which waste energy.
Less than 1% of commercial buildings get full window replacements each year due to price. Secondary glazing systems can solve this.
Arizona Corporation Commission moves to eliminate energy efficiency rules, renewables targets
The commission has initiated a proceeding to eliminate energy efficiency and renewable energy rules.
The reason is that regulators say that the rules have cost the state’s electricity consumers billions of dollars.
The order would eliminate the Renewable Energy Standard and Tariff and gas and electric energy efficiency and demand side management rules.
Ethiopia is ready to ban internal combustion engine vehicles immediately
The planned ban will be strictly enforced and existing vehicle owners will be subject to stringent smoke tests.
Any vehicle failing the test will no longer be eligible for servicing and will have to be removed from the road.
The Ministry of Transport is moving on plans to establish charging infrastructure across the country and Ethiopia is expected to witness a gold rush moment for EV manufacturers, importers and infrastructure providers.
Data centres curbed as pressure grows on electricity grids
Ireland, Germany, Singapore and China are imposing rules on building new server farms over energy usage fears.
Dublin has rejected a number of new permits for data centers as they are to account for 32% of national electricity demand in 2026.
Germany and Loudon County in Virginia are limiting permits in residential areas or require them to contribute renewable energy to the grid and reuse waste heat.
Many grids in the world cannot handle AI driven workloads and the energy use is placing pressure on national climate targets.
Related:
Why we invested in Phaidra (GS Futures) - Phaidra optimizes energy use in data centers.
For Turner Construction, data centers are a $1.5b a year business unit.
'Better Buildings Act' would mandate electrification in new construction
Maryland has a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2045.
This has led to the General Assembly reviewing building codes with House Bill 1279.
Moving to an all electric building standard for commercial and residential buildings is designed to help meet the goal.
It requires parking spaces for electric vehicle charging and solar ready roofs for large buildings and aims to adopt a requirement for new buildings and significant improvements of buildings to have water and heating demands met without the use of fossil fuels.
If passed, changes would be in force by October 2026.
Bipartisan Bill Aimed at Creating Construction Pre-Apprenticeships
The Pre-Apprenticeships To Hardhats (PATH) Act is aimed at creating, funding, and sustaining pre-apprenticeship programs for all building and construction trades.
The Feds Just Bet Even Bigger on American-Made Heat Pumps
The US Department of Energy is announcing another $63 million to increase domestic manufacturing of heat pumps.
New Funds
Brookfield Asset Management, a global investment management company, raised $10b for its second Global Transition Fund. More here.
Acquisitions
Martin Marietta, a construction aggregates and heavy building materials supplier is acquiring 20 active aggregate operations of Blue Water Industries for $2.05b. More here.
Johnson Controls, a multinational that produces fire, HVAC and security equipment for buildings is considering the sale of HVAC assets at $5b value. More here.
Tuckahoe Holdings, a PE firm acquired Gateway Deal Network, a provider of industrial and construction equipment. More here.
Global Infrastructure Partners, an infrastructure investment fund, will acquire a 50% stake in two wind power projects from utility firm Eversource Energy for $1.1b. More here.
News
Crash tests indicate nation’s guardrail system can’t handle heavy electric vehicles (US)
Electric SUVs are heavier than internal combustion engineer vehicles (due to batteries).
Existing infrastructure may not be fit for purpose (parking, guardrails etc).
UK Government finally publishes £775bn infrastructure pipeline
It outlines 660 projects over the next 10 years.
The £775bn total includes £164bn of planned investment in the current and next financial year.
One person can supervise ‘swarm’ of 100 unmanned autonomous vehicles, OSU research shows
This has implications for construction sites where 1 person could act as a supervisors/spotter for a large number of automated robots.
Announcing the LATAM ConTech stakeholder community
Construction Innovation: Venture Capital and Contech Funding (
)The Curse of Billions (May Mobility CEO)
Thought plywood was an Ikea thing? This startup is using it to build wind turbines (sifted)
ABC Unveils AI Resource Guide for Contractors
Will America ever stop building more highways? (Washington Post, paywall)
If I missed anything this week, please reply and let me know! I’ll make sure to include it next week.