Last Week in ConTech - 20 November 2023

America's aging infrastructure & rising funding for Smart Windows

Nov 20, 2023

ConTech Roundup - A summary of the construction technology (ConTech) startup funding, news, acquisitions, policy and regulatory changes which occurred this week.

Last Week in ConTech - 20 November 2023

Startup Funding

Buildings
Halio, a Californian startup, raised $70m in funding. They develop electrochromic (smart) glass for buildings helping owners to optimize energy use and savings by reducing solar heat gain. More here.
Note: 2150 (a Venture Capital Firm) has shared their thesis on Smart Glass & Windows (seemingly benign - it’s a large industry (US$159.8b market size) with significant impact on building decarbonization and energy efficiency).

Transport
Ridepanda, a San Francisco startup, raised $7.5m in equity and debt funding. They provide micro mobility as a benefit allowing companies to offer eBikes and eScooters for their employees. More here.
Note: As linked in the last issue, mobility budgets offered by companies could change the future of transportation.

Decarbonization
Evenergi Labs, a London startup, raised $10m in Series A funding. They provide decarbonisation transition planning for fleet managers including governments, utility companies and logistic operators by automating vehicles and charger selection, utility infrastructure sizing and optimizing operational planning. More here.

Construction
Sitemate, an Australian startup, raised $7.5m in pre-Series A funding. They help heavy industries better manage and digitize their processes including enabling data collection and attendance records for workforce personnel. More here.

Ediphi, a San Francisco startup, raised $6.5m in seed funding. They are building a cloud based solution to help construction estimators predict building costs. More here.

Ingenious.Build, a Tennessee startup, raised $37m in Series A funding. They are building a construction and project management solution. More here.

Infrastructure
Northvolt, a Stockholm based company, received a $150m investment. They are to use the funds to build a battery manufacturing factory in Canada. More here.
Note: As noted in the issue on September 4, Northvolt recently raised $1.2b.

Real Estate
Fyma, a London startup, raised $2.1m in funding. They use real time data from existing cameras to help asset owners and developers with property management including analyzing occupancy, providing footfall trafficking and providing efficient parking management. More here.

SwiftConnect, a New York startup, raised $10m in funding. They provide access control systems to streamline credentialing and access management for building owners and their property portfolios. More here.

Other
Sensoteq, an Irish startup, raised £3.1m in funding. They build sensors for remote monitoring of machinery conditions to predict faults removing the need for manual inspections and increasing resiliency on site. More here.

Efenco, an Estonian startup, raised €4.5m in funding. They have developed a high energy ray ceramic chip to reduce carbon emissions in critical industrial heat applications including cement production. More here.

Policy and Regulatory Changes

Biden hails historic $16.4 billion investment in Northeast rail

Biden has announced $16.4b in investment in rail projects along Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.
The funding is to replace aging infrastructure in a crucial railway corridor which supports 800k trips each day and represents 20% of the economy.

Note: There is growing concern about America’s aging infrastructure and the subsequent economic impact. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) publishes a report on the state of US infrastructure which can be found here.

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Issues Updated Guidance on Implementing Build America, Buy America Requirements

The Build America, Buy America refers to rules around construction materials used in US Federal infrastructure projects.
OMB’s latest update removes conflicting provisions and provides additional guidance regarding the waiver process.Waivers can be granted for three reasons:
- Public Interest Waiver
  Applying the Buy America preference would be inconsistent with the public interest
- Non Availability Waiver
  Types of iron, steel, manufactured products, or construction materials are not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available quantities or of a satisfactory quality.
- Unreasonable cost waiver
  The inclusion of iron, steel, manufactured products, or construction materials produced in the United States will increase the cost of the overall project by more than 25%.

Note: A summary of the Build America, Buy America guidelines can be found in the 21st August issue.

Map of cities which have committed to passing a building performance policy (Linkedin post by Brendan Wallace, Partner at Fifth Wall)

A building performance standard requires buildings to meet efficiency (energy, gas, water) targets by certain deadlines. These get stricter over time.
The map shows cities which have committed to passing a building performance policy by Earth Day 2024.

Illinois to lift moratorium on nuclear construction

11 nuclear reactors currently supply more than half of Illinois' electricity.
The state had a moratorium on the construction of new nuclear capacity since 1987.
New legislation will allow the construction of small modular reactors of up to 300 MWe capacity from 2026.

Related: Last Energy is a startup delivering modular nuclear reactors. Their thesis is that the difficulty is not in the development of nuclear reactor technology, but rather in the delivery and construction of nuclear plants. They offer nuclear energy as a service taking end-to-end responsibility for all deployment activities from product design to operations and maintenance.

New Funds & Acquisitions

inDrive, a Californian company which provides a mobility and urban services platform, has launched a venture and M&A arm aiming to invest $100m in startups. More here.

Jacobs, an engineering consultant, is in advanced talks to merge its government consulting arm with PE owned Amentum Services at a valuation of over $4b. More here.

Gemspring Capital Management acquired Fenceworks, a California based fencing installer and distributor for homebuilders. More here.

Partners Group, a global private equity firm, is acquiring Rosen, a Swiss based provider of inspection services for energy infrastructure assets. More here.