Last Week in ConTech - 01 July 2024
Growing support for nuclear + 3 new funds
Last Week in ConTech is a summary of the most important construction startup funding, news, policy changes and national project investments in the last 7 days. The goal is to provide decision makers with information on technology solutions and macro-economic trends in construction to help drive innovation in the industry.
In this issue there are:
19 Startup Fundings
10 Policy and Regulatory Changes
3 New National Infrastructure Projects & Priorities
3 New investment funds
2 Acquisitions
7 News articles
89 open jobs - view here
Reading time: 16 mins
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Startup Funding
Project Management
Clearstory, a Californian startup, raised $16m in Series B funding from investors including Building Ventures and GS Futures. They have developed a change order communication management platform which provides real time visibility to GCs, subcontractors and owners supporting collaborative workflows to expedite approvals and payments. More here.
[View open jobs - 2 roles in Sales, 1 role in Product, 1 role in Other]
Inspections & Maintenance
Unusuals, a Spanish startup, raised €1m in Seed funding. They provide AI solutions for the maintenance of linear structures in the electrical (solar, wind farms, power lines etc) and railway industries for infrastructure owners to automate tasks such as inspections. More here.
LiveEo, a German startup, raised €25m in funding. They use satellite data and AI for climate risk management and to monitor infrastructure such as railways, power lines and pipelines. More here.
[View open jobs - 4 roles in Operations, 2 roles in Project Management, 5 roles in Software, 1 role in Marketing, 5 roles in Sales, 1 role in HR, 1 role in Finance]
Notes:
The solution helps businesses to detect in real time extreme weather and environmental risks to their infrastructure.
An example use case is Deutsche Bahn who uses it to safeguard their railway assets and can monitor vegetation encroachment or ground deformation.
Equipment
Leasi, a Norwegian startup, raised €1.1m in pre-seed funding from investors including Skanska. They have developed a machine management solution which enables rental companies and contractors to capture and consolidate data from all their machines and equipment. This includes data on operations service and maintenance, utilization rates, emissions, capital allocation, and other financial information. More here (english version here).
[View open jobs - 1 role in Software]
Climate resiliency
Climate X, a London startup, raised $18m in Series A funding. They assess the climate risk of residential and commercial properties as well as infrastructure (road, rail and power). More here.
[View open jobs - 3 roles in Sales, 1 role in Operations, 1 role in Other]
Notes:
The climate adaptation market is valued at $2 trillion and becoming a concern for governments.
For example, NOAA announced $60m in climate resilience job training last week.
Climate X’s platform lets clients understand the effects of 16 different climate hazards (e.g extreme heat or tropical cyclones) across 8 warming scenarios over a 100 year time horizon at an individual asset scale.
Related:
Alternative Site Power Sources
Solus Power, a British startup, raised £22m in funding. They develop portable electric vehicle (EV) chargers for off grid and rapid EV charging use cases. More here.
Notes:
This solution is valuable for the construction industry.
To electrify the construction site, we must make it as easy as possible to support electric vehicles.
With construction sites in rugged and remote environments, this solution provides an alternative power source which is easily placed under vehicles for fast charging.
Materials
Neustark, a Swiss startup, raised €64.3m in funding. They capture CO2 from biogas facilities, transport it to construction waste recycling sites to permanently store it in demolished concrete through a mineralization process. The recycled aggregate can then be used to produce fresh recycled building materials. More here.
[View open jobs - 2 roles in Project Management, 4 roles in Sales, 1 role in Software 2 roles in Finance, 2 roles in Other]
Construction Supervision
ObraLink, a Chilean startup, received follow-on investment from Cemex Ventures (amount undisclosed). They are building a construction monitoring platform and have developed technology to monitor the hardening process of concrete to predict its strength in real time during construction. More here.
Safety
1Breadcrumb, an Australian startup, raised $4m in funding. They provide a construction site safety management solution which can help streamline and automate site safety including tasks such as inductions, permit management, monitoring attendance, site access and alerts for workers. More here.
[View open jobs - 2 roles in Sales, 1 role in Software, 2 roles in Support, 1 role in Operations]
Robots
Planted Solar, a Californian startup, raised $20m in Series A funding. They have designed a solution which allows solar farms to be developed on terrain which is typically too challenging to develop by using unique modeling software and robots to assemble it. More here (no paywall link here).
[View open jobs - 1 role in Sales, 3 roles in Software, 1 role in Operations, 4 roles in Other]
Formic, a Chicago startup, raised $24.7m in Series A funding. They provide manufacturers with robots on a subscription basis covering installation, maintenance and operation with prices for light loads as low as $10.00 - $18.75 per hour. More here.
[View open jobs - 2 roles in Sales, 1 role in Support, 2 roles in Other]
Notes:
While not a construction focused solution, Formic’s subscription based Go-To-Market strategy is an interesting concept for the industry.
In construction (including robotics), Outcome as a Service models are gaining in popularity.
The reason is that this shifts the focus from selling a software tool or individual service to providing a guaranteed measurable outcome.
An example is Monumental which is a robotic bricklaying subcontractor.
Instead of selling their robots to General Contractors (GC) or Subcontractors, they offer their service directly to the GC by selling the outcome (laying xxx number of bricks at $xx cost) and self performing using their robots to deliver at lower cost.
This subscription model is an interesting sales strategy as it reduces the initial capital expenditure and offers a way for GCs to begin trialing robotic solutions on site and find valuable use cases.
This pricing model could be interesting for exoskeletons.
Smart Cities
Bitsensing, a South Korean startup, raised $25m in Series B funding. They provide 4D imaging radars which can be used for autonomous driving, digital healthcare and smart city solutions. More here.
Notes:
Self driving vehicles rely on sensors such as cameras and lidar to detect objects and the world around them.
These systems are limited by environmental conditions such as poor lighting, fog or rain.
4D imaging technology is an alternative which, while not yet as high resolution as current lidar systems, is improving at a rapid pace.
Bitsensing’s solution is being adopted in the Smart Cities sector and its traffic insight monitoring sensor is the first sensor to integrate an edge AI computing device into an intelligent transportation system solution.
Refer to this issue under ‘monitoring’ for more information on Edge AI in construction (and why this would be valuable for city wide ITS systems) or my LinkedIn post here.
Supply Chain
Trampoline, a British startup, raised $5m in Seed funding. They are building a B2B platform which provides access to the design-led home décor market for independent retailers providing support from design to delivery including access to the same tool kit of services which are usually available to big box retailers such as low minimum order quantities and payment terms. More here.
Notes:
This solution is not a construction focused B2B platform, however their playbook for supply chain cross border procurement in India is interesting.
It is difficult for small to medium retailers to gain access to low cost manufacturing in India.
This platform makes it easier by improving discoverability of independent manufacturers in India and helping retailers gain access to niche products.
The platform ensures the quality of products procured on the platform and handles logistics (improving supply chain visibility and transparency).
They are also building a tech solution to help their suppliers source raw materials and manage labor.
This solution is interesting because it could be used across other verticals (which are relevant to construction) to help mid-sized contractors with cross border products / materials procurement.
The issues of discoverability, quality and supply chain transparency are not unique to the home décor market and their playbook could be copied by a construction supply chain startup.
It is especially pertinent due to the nearshoring of manufacturing capability and China+1 strategies.
Prewave, a Vienna startup, raised $67.5m in Series B funding. They help businesses identify supply chain risks by monitoring news, social media and other information sources for early warnings about natural disasters, strikes, or regulatory changes. More here.
[View open jobs - 6 roles in Sales, 5 roles in Software, 2 roles in Operations, 1 role in Product, 1 role in Finance, 1 role in Support, 1 role in Other]
Charging Infrastructure
Char.gy, a London startup, raised £100m in funding. They have developed an electric vehicle (EV) charging network and claim to be a key partner for UK local councils, helping them to install public charge points funded by the CIIF, a £420M public-private fund initiated by the UK Government in 2019. More here.
HEIMLADEN, a German startup, raised Seed funding (undisclosed). They plan, design and operate charging infrastructure for residential and office properties. More here.
[View open jobs - 2 roles in Sales, 1 role in Operations]
Be.EV, a UK startup, raised £55m in funding. They build rapid electric vehicle charging networks and are aiming to have over 1000 rapid chargers by the end of the year. More here.
[View open jobs - 1 role in Operations, 1 role in Marketing, 1 role in Sales, 1 role in Finance]
Other
ProMark, a Danish startup, raised investment (undisclosed). They provide a workforce management solution which has applications in the Building & Engineering industry used by customers such as Heidelberg Materials and Aarsleff. More here.
[View open jobs - 2 roles in Support, 1 role in Operations]
Aquila, an Australian startup, raised $2m in funding. They have developed a technology which allows drones to be charged wirelessly from a distance of up to 50m allowing continuous flight operation. More here.
[View open jobs - 2 roles in Software]
Notes:
A target customer for this solution is mines and asset managers.
Having continuous operation of drones for site wide monitoring is valuable for construction sites and for Smart City applications.
Aquila’s long term goal is to establish an “internet of energy” which would be a space-based optical relay system that will supply electricity markets worldwide and potentially transform the use of existing grid infrastructure.
Metroblocks, a Californian startup, raised $5.2m in funding. They develop and operate multi-tenant data centers for hyperscalers and enterprise customers. More here.
Policy and Regulatory Changes
US judge blocks Biden wage rule for construction projects (more detailed breakdown here)
A federal judge has temporarily blocked a rule expanding the cases in which construction contractors are required to pay workers prevailing wages.
This applies to more than 1 million construction workers on $200 billion of federally funded infrastructure projects.
The judge found that the U.S. Department of Labor lacks the power to impose prevailing wage requirements when government agencies do not explicitly include them in contracts and to extend them to truck drivers who work on construction sites.
U.S. Senate passes bill to support advanced nuclear energy deployment
The ADVANCE Act, aimed at boosting nuclear energy development passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support (88-2).
It will speed up permitting and create new incentives for advanced nuclear reactor technologies.
Notes:
Nuclear energy plant construction is becoming ‘non-partisan’ infrastructure.
Non-partisan infrastructure are priorities which have bipartisan support and therefore will have continued investment regardless of the administration in power.
Due to soaring energy costs and the need for reliable, non-intermittent and clean energy, nuclear power is becoming increasingly popular globally and a consideration as part of the energy mix.
Last week, the UK labor party pledged to extend the lifetime of existing nuclear plants and committed to ensuring the long term security of the sector.
Developing capability and / or selling to this sector as it grows could be valuable.
Related:
Earthquake-prone Building Rules Under Review (New Zealand)
The government has announced an extensive review of management of seismic risk in existing buildings.
This is to ensure that it is being managed effectively and to consider society’s expectations and willingness to pay to mitigate the risk of injury and death in an earthquake.
It includes recommending regulatory responses that balance life safety risks against the costs of regulation and impact on private property owners.
Notes:
New Zealand has a high risk of earthquakes with seismic loading a consideration on all structures built there.
Understanding how they develop and change their building code can provide insights as to how other regions in the world may adapt their codes.
DOE issues cybersecurity best practices for securing clean energy supply chains
The new framework of best practices is for securing clean energy cyber supply chains, including key technologies used to manage and operate electricity, oil and natural gas systems.
There is a focus on risk management, transparency, operational resilience and proactive incident response.
Notes:
Cybersecurity of critical infrastructure assets is becoming an important national security concern.
Related:
Preparing for mandatory climate reporting in the construction industry – what you need to know (Australia)
New financial disclosures relating to climate impacts will soon need to be made by large Australian companies from 1 January 2025.
Large and medium-sized construction companies will be affected in a rolling scheme which will be in full force by 2028.
Notes:
A number of governments are implementing climate reporting requirements for large companies.
Large scale construction companies will become increasingly affected by this regulation.
The difficulty here is if the regulation requires the reporting of Scope 3 emissions.
This refers to emissions from supplies and supply chains such as organizations supplying goods and services.
Capturing and accounting for these emissions can be quite difficult for organizations especially in construction given the fragmentation of the industry with the number of suppliers and subcontractors on each project site.
As discussed in this issue, the US SEC dropped a requirement for U.S.-listed companies to disclose scope 3 emissions instead focusing on scope 1 & 2.
A reason was that they received a large number of comments concerning the cost of compliance, as well as the consistency and reliability of scope 3 data.
Biden administration announces $1.8B for infrastructure projects
This will be directed to 148 infrastructure projects across the U.S.
The funding comes from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program.
Climate adaptation plan updates released by 20+ federal agencies
More than 20 federal agencies last week released updated climate adaptation plans for 2024 through 2027.
The goal is to better integrate climate risk across their mission, operations, and asset management.
This update includes a common set of metrics to measure agencies’ progress on climate resilience.
NYC Council approves legislation requiring proactive building inspections
The New York City Council on June 20 passed a bill mandating proactive inspections to identify potentially hazardous buildings and structures.
If signed into law, it would require the Department of Buildings create a risk-based inspection program that can identify dangerous buildings using a model to predict the likelihood of structural failures by assessing factors such as building data, violation history and any prior facade inspection reports.
EEOC issues anti-harassment guidance to construction-industry employers
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) has issued guidance tailored to the construction industry regarding compliance with anti-harassment laws.
It provides key recommendations that construction-industry leaders and employers should consider implementing to prevent and address harassment in the workplace, and avoid being the target of the EEOC’s enforcement efforts.
The EEOC in their Strategic Enforcement Plan (“SEP”) stated that it intended to focus its enforcement efforts on the industry and employers in the construction industry should remain on alert.
NYSERDA opens latest solicitation for large-scale, land-based renewable energy
New York state has opened its latest solicitation for large-scale, land-based clean energy projects with the aim of reaching 70% renewable energy by 2030.
They will accept bids from solar, land-based wind, and hydroelectric projects.
They will consider bids from hydrogen fuel cells so long as the hydrogen fuel has been produced using renewable energy.
National Infrastructure Projects & Priorities
US
US sees 84% year-on-year rise in Q1 energy storage deployments, three states dominant
The US energy storage industry had its highest ever first quarter deployment figures in 2024.
Notes:
Building out energy storage capacity is becoming increasingly important as the grid shifts towards intermittent renewable energy.
In addition, there is a rise in negative energy prices on windy and sunny days which can impact investment decisions.
It is important to address this to ensure the long term viability of the sector by creating an efficient market and continuing private sector renewable energy infrastructure investment.
Increasing energy storage is one solution.
Biden Is Giving Red Districts an Inconvenient Gift: Green Jobs
The White House’s policies have fueled plans for more than $200 billion in cleantech manufacturing investments (80% went to EV and battery projects).
Most of the investments were made in districts in Republican districts ($161b).
Notes:
As part of this article, they put together a dataset on where the Inflation Reduction Act dollars have been spent across the US.
The dataset breaks down how the dollars have been spent across Republican vs Democrat party lines including investments in marginal seats.
To note, the Democrats supported the IRA while the Republicans opposed it.
Investment in cleantech manufacturing through the IRA could be impacted by the US Presidential election this year.
Mexico
This Mexican Port Is Angling to Be a Nearshoring Gateway
The Guaymas Port in Mexico is looking to reposition itself as a transport hub to accelerate nearshoring in the region with $220m in investment from the government.
Previously, the port was mainly a hub for moving minerals out of the region.
Mexico is aiming to capitalize on US nearshoring which could help the country’s GDP gain 3 percentage points in the next five years,
Notes:
Nearshoring will boost private investment in manufacturing facilities as the government invests in transportation and logistics infrastructure.
President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum has pledged to promote foreign investment in the country.
Investment funds
Blackhorn Ventures, a US venture fund, closed a $150m fund. The ‘Industrial Impact Fund II’ will invest in digital infrastructure accelerating the energy transition with the goal of investing in founders who are transforming how we build, power, and move our world. More here.
Ironspring Ventures, a Texas venture fund, closed a $100m fund. They focus on investing in startups in the construction, manufacturing, transport & logistics, and alternative energy sectors. More here.
H2O Innovation, a Canadian water solutions company and Cycle Capital, a ClimateTech venture capital platform, announced an initial close of their Cycle H2O Fund. The fund has a target size of CAD$30m and will invest in watertech companies. More here.
Acquisitions
Holcim, a Swiss multinational company which manufactures building materials, has acquired Candi-Landi Group, a Swiss recycling, ready-mix concrete and aggregates company. More here.
Saint Gobain, a French building materials company, has agreed to acquire FOSROC, a Dubai construction chemicals maker for €960m. More here.
News
The Audacious Scheme to Reroute India’s Water
The National River Linking Project will see India’s National Water Development Agency dig 30 links that will transfer an estimated 200 billion cubic meters of water around the country each year.
The goal is to help irrigate tens of millions of hectares of farmland and bolster India’s hydroelectric power generation and has an estimated price tag of US $168-billion.
Solar Energy Faces Cloudy Prospects on Warehouse Rooftops
Industrial real-estate companies are exploring the use of solar panel installations on warehouse roofs to cut energy costs, reduce emissions and improve revenue.
Notes:
This trend could be accelerated by the passing of the ADVANCED Act (see above) which supports the development of nuclear power.
Large scale factories or warehouses could have SMR nuclear reactors in the future to supply energy for their own operations.
Atlanta inaugural E-Bike Rebate Program opened
The program received over 4,500 applicants in the first 12 hours (1% of the city's population).
Only 700 rebates were available.
Notes:
There is significant interest in the use of e-bikes and this could influence investment in bicycle infrastructure.
At a glance: construction contracts and insurance in Germany
Microsoft charged with EU antitrust violations for bundling Teams
Microsoft could face a fine of up to 10% of its annual global revenue for bundling Teams with Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
Given that the majority of construction companies use Microsoft products, the outcome of the ruling and potential subsequent pricing changes could have an impact on company costs.
Climate change impacts elevate US commercial real estate insurance costs
Average insurance costs for commercial real estate properties across the industry have nearly doubled over the past decade.
In 2023, there were 28 separate billion-dollar extreme weather events with estimated recovery costs totaling US$92.9 billion, exceeding the records for both count and cost from 2020.
If I missed anything this week, please reply and let me know! I’ll make sure to include it next week.