Last Week in ConTech - 3 November 2025
Where are AI solutions actually gaining traction?
Deep Insight: Where are AI solutions actually gaining traction?
Last week I was part of a panel on new technologies in construction discussing where we are seeing AI solutions actually gain traction. We identified opportunities in:
Proposal Drafting and Bidding
Examples include: Joist AI, Bidblox, WorkorbInspections Reports / Site Reports
Examples include: InspectMind AI, Opusense
These were highlighted as one of the panel participants, an innovation director at a global consultancy, mentioned them as their first use cases for building AI solutions internally. I suspect this was because:
There’s existing structured data to train a model (e.g past proposals and reports)
It’s lower risk as it’s easy to review an AI written report and make edits (vs a generative design model).
People generally dislike completing these tasks.
By starting here, firms build internal capability in AI development and deployment in a low risk way while introducing their teams to new ways of working.
This got me thinking though, which other construction firms are building internal AI solutions? And where?
To answer, I read the latest quarterly earnings transcripts from publicly traded major AEC consultancies. Here are some interesting excerpts relating to AI and technology:
WSP (Global engineering and professional services firm)
In our bidding group…we believe that very soon, we will be able to reduce some of our human output by close to 80%. So that’s not de minimis because we have bidding groups across each and every segment and across each and every country.
Stantec (a sustainable engineering, architecture, and environmental consulting firm)
But as we look at our inside of Stantec, you know, we’ve deployed over 10,000 licenses of Copilot, know, throughout the organization…And so we’re looking at it from a number of perspectives…Proposal writing, how can we speed, you know, get speed to market on those sorts of things. And then also thinking about on the design side, where we can start optimizing and automating some of the design processes
Arcadis (Global design & engineering consultancy firm)
We’re investing in automation to improve our win rates by using AI to help us with our pursuit and bid processes, and we’re ramping this up as we speak in order to capitalize on the significant numbers of opportunities.
AI is increasingly being discussed as an opportunity for margin expansion by AEC consultancies. For startups, there’s an opportunity to identify where the large firms are building internal tools and then bring those capabilities to the mid-market which face the same pain points but lack in-house development talent.
If you’d like to dive deeper into where construction firms are investing in AI and how that aligns with startup funding trends, I’ll be covering this at Kahua’s Build Forward (free) Online Summit, analyzing public earnings calls and funding data to map where corporate demand and investor dollars intersect (and where the gaps are).
In this issue there are:
10 Startup Fundings
13 Policy and Regulatory Changes
9 New National Infrastructure Projects & Priorities
0 New investment funds
2 Acquisitions
9 News articles
52 new jobs posted - view here
Reading time: 14 min
Startup Funding
Financing
FAKTUS, a French startup, raised €9m in equity from investors including Foundamental. They are building a neobank dedicated to construction SMEs offering real time project cashflow tracking, invoicing financing with immediate liquidity on receivals, upfront funding for material advances and retention bonds. More here.
Preconstruction
Belidor, a New York startup, raised $3.1m in Pre-Seed funding. They are building an AI platform to help preconstruction teams win more bids starting with developing bid leveling software. More here.
Notes:
Bid leveling is the process project owners and GCs use to identify the best builder for a project.
It involves organising the bids in a way which makes comparing them easier, typically laying out each bid and work item in a spreadsheet with its quoted price.
This is important as owners may choose the lowest bid not realising that key items in the scope of work were not included in the bid.
Business Management
WorkHero, a Boston startup, raised $5m in Seed funding from investors including Navitas Capital. They are building an AI powered back office platform for small HVAC contractors which can invoice customers, pull permits, file rebates, register warranties and build price books with dedicated account managers and AI agents to execute repetitive workflows. More here.
Notes:
WorkHero appears to be following the consulting go-to-market approach by offering fractional (part-time) office admin support to small HVAC owners.
Their Ideal Customer Persona (ICP) is “owners with 2-4 trucks who still spend their evenings and weekends doing paperwork.”
At this stage owners are still doing all the busywork themselves as they don’t yet have the resources to hire a full time or dedicated office manager.
Additionally they often only need admin support for ~1 or 2 days a week of work. These resources are challenging to find and often don’t have industry understanding.
WorkHero addresses this gap by offering two monthly solutions:
Admin Essentials: $1,800 / month covering core admin tasks (scheduling, invoicing, permit filings).
Business Growth: $2,500 / month including the Admin Essentials plan plus marketing, financial insights and process optimization.
From the outside and the way their copy is written, they make it seem like every HVAC owner receives a fractional Office Admin who understands the industry and completes tasks for them.
This is an interesting concept as there is an opportunity to build a specialized fractional staffing firm for small builders, combining service and software.
Small builders often have growing pains as the owners have to focus on both office tasks as well as being in the field for delivery.
During this phase they are tight on time and cash, but a staffing firm could work fractionally on admin tasks across a large number of clients.
In the backend, they could develop software to streamline and automate their internal operations.
In the longer term, as small firms scale from 5 to 20 staff and require a full time resource, they can transition from the fractional admin model to a SaaS platform managing back-office workflows.
Design
Spacial, a Californian startup, raised $10m in Seed funding. They have developed an AI platform which operates as an engineering co-pilot for architects which helps deliver permit ready structural and MEP plans for residential construction by converting 2D architectural drawings into 3D, code-compliant construction documents with built-in design conflict detection, architectural detailing, and local code validation. More here.
Notes:
Spacial operates as a licensed engineering firm that uses proprietary software to power operations.
Users can submit plans which are validated by their AI platform, creating a BIM model as well as running code compliance and clash checks.
They then have licensed engineers review and resolve your plans, confirming that it is ready for approval and designing the set to ensure it meets local codes and regulations.
Then their PE-licensed engineers stamp the plans ensuring it is permit ready.
On their website they don’t call themselves a structural engineering platform or a company that just provides a tool, rather they provide the complete outcome clients want, a stamped set of engineering plans.
It’s a reflection of how startups are innovating on the traditional SaaS model to meet the needs of the industry.
Maket, a Canadian startup, raised CAD$3.4m in funding. They are building the ChatGPT for architecture, offering a generative design solution for residential planning allowing the instance creation of customized floor plans from user inputs as well as editing and 3D visualisation. More here.
Hiring / Labor Management
VeroSkills, an Alabama startup, raised $5.3m in funding. They have developed an AI powered staffing platform connecting blue collar business to pre-screened, ready to work candidates from immigrant, refugee and underserved communities. More here.
Renovation
Kai, a US startup, raised $10m in funding. They are developing a renovation platform that uses AI to visually identify what’s needed to fix a house, converting photos and videos of house projects into SKU level material specifications and cost estimates. More here.
Notes:
They have launched a partnership with Home Depot linking their inventory list.
This allows users to scan a project, identify material and immediately order them.
Green Concrete
DMAT, an Italian startup, raised €3.8m in funding. They have developed a technology which self heals cracks and resists carbonation to extend the lifespan of concrete and mortar. More here.
Vertically Integrated Contractors
Michezo Sports, a Bangalore startup, raised $2.5m in Pre-Series A funding. They provide turnkey solutions including the design, building and maintenance of sporting facilities from athletic tracks and football fields to badminton and squash courts. More here.
Weather
MarineLabs, a Canadian startup, raised CAD$4m in Seed Extension funding. They provide real-time maritime weather intelligence which is used as validation data essential for modelling coastal infrastructure projects and designing climate resilient coastal protection. More here.
Policy and Regulatory Changes
US
US, China Tee Up Sweeping Trade Deal for Trump, Xi to Finish
Top trade negotiators for the US and China said they came to terms on a range of contentious points.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Trump’s threat of 100% tariffs on Chinese goods “is effectively off the table.”
Notes:
This will have an impact on construction costs imports make up 7% of U.S. construction materials
China accounted for 27% of these imports (in 2023).
New York City is having an office-to-housing conversion boom. Could Chicago be next?
The Chicago City Council recently approved the Art Deco skyscraper built in 1927 to be converted into 214 residential apartments.
Office to housing conversions are rising as New York City saw annual office conversions surge from 1.6 million square feet in 2023 to 3.3 million square feet last year.
Chicago currently has a greater proportion of vacant downtown office space than New York City (28% vs New York’s 13%).
There are currently at least 11 planned office conversion projects in the works in Chicago.
US pushes regulators on connecting data centers to grid
The U.S. Energy Secretary directed federal energy regulators to consider a rule aimed at speeding up the connection of data centers to electric grids.
It would allow customers to file joint, co-located load and generation interconnection requests.
The rule also pushes FERC to mull whether reviews for grid projects, which sometimes take years, can be done in 60 days.
The California Chamber of Commerce introduced a ballot initiative to overhaul the state’s landmark environmental law with strict new deadlines for such reviews.
The proposal would impose, in many cases, a 365-day limit on environmental reviews for projects deemed essential, including affordable housing, clean energy and wildfire resiliency.
The initiative could reach voters in November 2026 and comes after lawmakers passed sweeping exemptions to the California Environmental Quality Act for urban home builders.
DOE cancels $700 million in battery and manufacturing project grants
The Department of Energy’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains canceled more than $700 million in grants last week.
The cuts targeted battery and manufacturing projects.
California greenlights $25M for apprenticeship programs
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has approved $25 million in grants for apprenticeship programs across the state, many of which will funnel workers into the construction industry.
The grants aid 88 apprenticeship programs that will train approximately 22,200 California workers in the skilled trades.
Wisconsin bill would require contractors to use E-Verify
Wisconsin legislators are proposing a bill that would require contractors on state jobs worth $50,000 or more to use the federal E-Verify program to vet its workers.
The E-Verify program is operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.
It lets employers confirm whether newly hired employees can work in the U.S. by comparing their I-9 information with data in federal databases.
Judge blocks NOAA’s termination of $9 million in climate funding for Washington
Washington won an order in federal court today blocking the Trump administration’s termination of more than $9 million in funding.
This would help the state build resilience to the growing hazards posed by climate change.
UK
Environmental permits to be scrapped for pre-construction works
The government is planning legislation to relax the environmental permitting system.
The changes would remove early hold-ups for builders, speeding up construction of new housing and infrastructure in England by cutting red tape.
Currently certain pre-construction activities are required to acquire environmental permits before they can begin, despite posing only minimal risk.
Examples include site investigations, the storage of waste materials and drainage operations.
These low-risk activities will be exempted from the permit application process.
Australia
Watt open to deal with Coalition on environmental law overhaul
The Environment Minister plans to introduce to parliament a major overhaul of Australia’s environmental laws aimed at hastening approvals for resource and renewables projects.
It would also give a new National Environmental Protection Agency powers to stop environmental destruction and punish lawbreakers.
The entity would have the ability to enforce project conditions and audit state and territory processes for assessing and approving them in line with new standards.
Notes:
This bill has to pass parliament and the opposition party demanded that the bill is split into two tranches.
A driver of this bill is a case for faster environmental approvals as public infrastructure funding falls and there is a need for private investment.
Net government infrastructure spending is forecast to drop from a high of 2.3 per cent of the economy in 2023-24 to 1.5 per cent by 2028.
Slow approval times and complex, often duplicated processes have been blamed for holding up renewable projects critical to the net zero transition.
India
Major amendments to building rules come into effect in Kerala
The classification of low-risk buildings has been expanded.
With the removal of the 7-m height restriction, almost 80% of residential constructions will be eligible for building permit within minutes of applying.
The category of buildings which can be cleared for construction by the local body secretary without the clearance of the district town planner has been expanded.
Delhi govt intensifies action against polluting construction sites; 185 inspected
The Delhi government has intensified its action against unregistered and polluting construction sites across the city.
33 additional teams of the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) have been deployed to carry out ground inspections.
Japan
Japan’s New Leader Set to Keep Nuclear Energy Central
The newly elected prime minister of Japan, may slow the nation’s development of solar farms while keeping nuclear power central.
This is as solar is Chinese made, not Japanese.
The government has a target of having 20% to 22% of the nation’s electricity come from nuclear by 2030.
However only 14 of the country’s 33 commercially available reactors have resumed operation.
Restarts face high regulatory hurdles and have to win local government support with only three more reactors expected to come online by 2030.
National Infrastructure Projects & Priorities
US
Support for expanding nuclear power is up in both parties since 2020
About six-in-ten U.S. adults now say they favor more nuclear power plants to generate electricity.
That’s up from 43% in 2020, driven by increasing support among both Republicans and Democrats.
Americans remain more likely to favor expanding solar (77%) and wind power (68%) than nuclear power (59%).
Support for solar and wind power has declined by double digits since 2020.
The share who favor nuclear power has grown by 16 percentage points since then.
US government and Westinghouse strike $80bn nuclear reactor deal
The US government and the owners of Westinghouse have struck an $80bn deal to build a fleet of nuclear reactors, using funding from a trade agreement with Japan.
It would fund about eight Westinghouse AP1000 power plants or a mix of larger facilities and small modular reactors.
NextEra Energy partners with Google to restart Iowa nuclear plant
NextEra Energy and Google have reached an agreement to restart an Iowa nuclear power plant shut five years ago.
Under the deal, the Duane Arnold Energy Center near Cedar Rapids is scheduled to resume operations in early 2029.
The restart is backed by a 25-year agreement for Google to buy electricity from the 615-megawatt plant.
New York’s Largest Battery Project Has Been Canceled
Fullmark Energy quietly shuttered Swiftsure, a planned 650-megawatt energy storage system on Staten Island.
It’s unclear why the project was canceled.
Canada
U.S. Trade War Drives Canada to Fast-Track Port Expansion
The Prime Minister is fast-tracking the expansion at the Port of Montreal as Canada seeks to grow trade outside of the U.S.
The new container-handling terminal will cost about 1.6 billion Canadian dollars.
It was one of five projects selected to be of national importance.
The others include a liquefied natural gas facility, a nuclear power project and two copper mines.
These will be fast-tracked by a newly created Major Projects Office and should accelerate regulatory approvals and financing.
Germany
Nvidia, Deutsche Telekom Plan €1 Billion German Data Center
Nvidia Corp. and Deutsche Telekom AG are preparing to announce plans for a €1 billion data center in Germany.
This is part of a broader push to develop more infrastructure across Europe to power AI systems.
South Korea
Amazon to Invest Another $5 Billion in South Korea Data Centers
The capital will go toward erecting several data centers in the years to 2031.
The spending comes on top of more than $4 billion of envisioned investment with partner SK Group announced in June.
Iran
Iran to roll out solar power projects nationwide
Renewable electricity has “evolved from a supportive policy to a strategic necessity,” an Iranian minister said.
The country’s solar capacity doubled this year.
Notes:
This reduces their dependence on imports and allows energy independence.
Clean energy investment is increasingly viewed from a geopolitical lens.
Mozambique
Total’s LNG Project in Mozambique to Restart After Years of Delay
TotalEnergies SE and its partners in 2021 froze the $20 billion plan to build what was at the time hailed as Africa’s biggest private investment.
This was due to a terrorist attack in a nearby town.
They have now ended ‘force majeure’ paving the way for work to formally restart on the export terminal.
Acquisitions
OpenSpace, a reality capture solution, acquired Disperse, a construction progress tracking solution. More here.
Notes:
The acquisition comes due to momentum from OpenSpace’s Progress Tracking product which is powered by Disperse.
It combines OpenSpace 360° image capture with verified progress analytics from Disperse.
It’s interesting to me as I have wondered how to translate visual data from reality capture into measurable construction progress.
In my ideal future, a reality capture solution would scan a building, provide as-builts as a BIM model and compare it to the design.
This would allow me to complete tasks such as:
Identify deviations requiring rework or redesign (e.g., a pipe installed 20 cm off position).
Track progress against the schedule to enable just-in-time material orders and crew scheduling.
Verify work completion to automate progress payments.
As basic reality capture becomes commoditized (e.g OpenSpace, Evercam, Holobuilder, DroneDeploy etc), the value is shifting toward platforms that connect to project data stacks and streamline downstream workflows.
WSP reportedly eyes Jacobs with multibillion-dollar offer
Canadian infrastructure giant WSP offered to buy Dallas-based Jacobs for a multibillion-dollar sum.
Jacobs hired investment bank Centerview Partners to review WSP’s bid.
It had both a stock and cash component but consisted mostly of stock.
Notes:
Jacobs’ market cap is $18.62 billion USD.
News
Data Center Spending Set to Surpass Office Projects
Spending on data center construction is on the brink of overtaking office construction for the first time, according to U.S. Census data.
Just two years ago, U.S. spending on office construction dwarfed data center investment by a factor of seven.
North America Data Center Trends H1 2025 (CBRE)
AI Data Center Boom Threatens Trump’s Manufacturing Revival (Bloomberg)
Spending on factory construction is down 2.5% so far this year, while that for data centers is up almost 18%.
The state of AEC-Tech in Q3 2025 (Foundamental)
$857M raised in Q3 and a 0.5% share of total VC for the quarter.
Cumulatively, the sector now sits at $39B in venture equity.
By region, Europe + Israel lead on market share at 0.8%, ahead of APAC (0.5%) and North America (0.4%).
EquipmentShare Bonds Sink as Ousted Board Member Alleges Fraud
Microsoft Warns Investors About Local Opposition to Data Centers
How Starcloud Is Bringing Data Centers to Outer Space (NVIDIA)
How Did This State Become the Data Center Capital of the World?
Convenience store executives say EV charging investments not paying off
If I missed anything this week, please reply and let me know! I’ll make sure to include it next week.
The Deutsche Telekom data center investment is interesting when you think about their T-Mobile US subsidiary's position in the AI infrastructure race. TMUS has been quietly building edge computing capabilities that could benifit from parent company expertise in AI data center operations. The timing aligns with T-Mobile's network densification push which creates natural edge compute nodes for low latency AI applications. If DT can transfer learnings from this German facility to T-Mobile's US operations, that's a competitive advantage most investors aren't pricing in yet.