Last Week in ConTech - 27 November 2023
ConTech Jobs list + what's with all the construction material acquisitions?
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 - 27 November 2023
In this issue there are:
12 Startup Fundings
3 Policy and Regulatory Changes
4 Acquisitions
5 News articles
Based on feedback I am adding a list of open jobs at the startups featured each week. This is to help people looking to work for construction tech companies or agencies seeking to provide services to recently funded startups. The list will be updated weekly (please let me know if you want to access the full list of data from previous issues).
Access the list of ConTech jobs here.
Startup Funding
Project Management
Toolbox, a New York startup, raised $1.6m in funding according to an SEC filing. They are building a finance management platform for construction, maintenance and repair contractors.
Obat, a French startup, raised €12m in Series A funding. They provide software to streamline online estimating and invoicing for building and civil engineering professionals. More here.
Regulation
Propcode, an Australian startup, raised $400k in pre-seed funding. They are building an AI based regulatory analysis engine for the construction industry aiming to quickly answer urban planning questions. More here.
[Hiring: 1 role in software]
Digital Twin
Blackshark.ai, an Austrian startup, raised €13.8m in Series A funding. They are building a real time digital twin of Earth providing a database of surface infrastructure and geointelligence. More here.
[Hiring: 3 roles in software]
Decarbonization
Vizcab, a French startup, raised €5m in Series A funding. They are building a platform to design low carbon buildings and which calculates the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to reduce the carbon impact of construction projects. More here.
[Hiring: 2 roles in software, 1 role in sales, 1 role in design]
Avarni, an Australian startup, raised $2.5m in funding. They use AI to measure companies' carbon emissions including aggregating raw supply chain and spending data to cut Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. More here.
Note:
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. These can be quite difficult to measure and understand for organizations.
Mobility
BasiGo, a Kenyan startup, received $1.5m in grant funding. They are a mobility startup working to provide more efficient and electric public transportation in Rwanda. More here.
Water
Cambrian Innovation, a Californian startup, raised $200m in funding. They provide wastewater treatment, water reuse and energy recovery as a service. More here.
Materials
ECOR Global, a Californian startup, raised funding (undisclosed). They manufacture sustainable building materials from agricultural and urban waste. More here.
Lingrove, a US startup, raised $10m in funding. They manufacture natural fiber composites from plant based fibers including producing Ekoa, a material developed from plant fiber and reported to provide a higher strength to weight ratio than steel. More here.
[Hiring: 1 role in marketing, 2 roles in operations, 1 role in design, 1 other roles (plant)]
Other
Craftwork, a North Carolina startup, raised $6m in seed funding. They are building a home services platform starting with house painting. More here.
Smart Modular Canada, a Canadian startup, raised CAD$1.38m in funding. They design, manufacture, ship, and install modular buildings. More here.
Policy and Regulatory Changes
EU building stock remains off track to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.
The EU must rapidly accelerate their building decarbonization efforts to meet their climate targets.
The share of renewable energies used for heating and cooling was around 30% lower than required.
Accumulated investments in renovation in 2020 were 40% lower than required.
As noted in July, a second order effect of building decarbonization is funding for HVAC startups is surging especially in the categories of heat pump design and installation. Heat pumps are 3x more efficient than traditional fossil fuel boilers.
Biden announces $3.9B for grid modernization
The funding was announced as part of a $6b investment into climate resilience programs including $300m for flood risk programs and $100m to improve water infrastructure.
It was noted that many current adaptations and improvements have been ‘incremental’ rather than ‘transformative’.
Incremental changes are small changes over time within the existing system.
Transformative change fundamentally shifts the function of a system.
New York City reveals plans to build Air Taxi Infrastructure
Plans made to add infrastructure to heliports to accommodate electric aircraft which take off and land vertically.
Joby Aviation and Volocopter have conducted successful test flights with companies in the sector aiming to service passengers by 2025.
Acquisitions
CRH, a global building materials business, agreed to acquire a portfolio of cement and ready-mixed concrete assets in Texas from Martin Marietta Materials for $2.1b. More here.
Sigmaroc, a building materials company, acquired the European lime operations of CRH, a global building materials business, for ~€1 billion. More here.
Aerologix, an Australian drone startup, has acquired Mappa, a Brazilian mapping company. More here.
Home Depot, the home improvement retail store, agreed to acquire International Designs Group, a provider of tile and other materials in a bid to provide more to professional contractors. More here.
News
Modi’s Nation-Building Push Sparks $125 Billion Rally in Industrial Stocks (Bloomberg, paywall)
India’s effort to transform their economic model to being driven by manufacturing is creating a tailwind for infrastructure and heavy-industry companies.
Infrastructure spending has increased in recent years with the aim to make India a developed nation by 2047.
Prime Minister Modi’s administration announced a $1.2t program last year to ease bottlenecks in addition to another initiative to build a network of roads and highways.
SmartHat is the Construction Wearable of the Future
The surprising scientific weirdness of glass
Where in America are we actually building new housing? (Washington Post)
Autodesk wants your construction tech (paywall)
If I missed anything this week, please reply and let me know! I’ll make sure to include it next week