Last Week in ConTech - 6 November 2023
Austin becomes the largest US city to remove minimum parking requirements
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 - 6 November 2023
Startup Funding
Building Decarbonization
Voltan, a Finnish startup, raised $1.6m in funding. They provide green heating and cooling systems for large residential properties. More here.
Mortar IO, a British startup, raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding. They are building a virtual modeling and simulation platform for commercial retrofits to support building decarbonization. More here.
Design
Cedar, an Austin startup, raised $3m in seed funding. They are building a generative design platform for housing and urban development. More here.
Permits
GreenLite, an Austin startup, raised $8m in seed funding. They are streamlining the construction permitting process. More here.
Construction
Brickeye, a Canadian startup, raised C$10m in funding. They use IoT sensors and data analytics for job site monitoring to reduce risk and boost productivity for construction projects. More here.
Electrification
CMBlu, a German startup, raised €100m in funding. They develop solid flow batteries and received the funding from Strabag, a construction firm intending on becoming a full range supplier of energy services for their construction projects and using their expertise to deploy the tech for industrial companies, utilities and grid operators. More here.
Water
Fibracast, a Canadian startup, raised C$44.6m in Series A funding. They develop membranes for water and wastewater treatment. More here.
Other
Promise Robotics, a Toronto startup, raised $15m in Series A funding. They have built a software platform which turns industrial robots into production systems for the home building industry. More here.
ESG Flo, a New York startup, raised $5.25m in seed funding. They provide customers in the real estate and infrastructure sectors with ESG data infrastructure to help manage their report and decision making needs. More here.
Samara, a San Francisco startup, raised $41m in funding. They make accessory dwelling units (tiny homes) in factories and deliver them to residential homes backyards. More here.
Policy and regulatory changes
Austin has become the largest US city to drop minimum parking spot requirements
The aim of the policy is to spur more housing construction amid the city’s affordability crisis.
Note: Parking space requirements can have a significant impact on housing construction and affordability. One Australian study found that one parking space per unit can increase costs by ~12.5% and two can increase by up to 25% (source).
Related: How Parking Destroys Cities (Atlantic), The High Cost of Minimum Parking Requirements
Climate Bonds, an international not-for-profit organization working to mobilize global capital for climate action has released their latest draft of the Climate Bonds New Buildings criteria which is to come in line with the EU Taxonomy on low carbon buildings. More here.
Climate bonds recap on the EU buildings taxonomy - This classifies buildings as either of the following:
Construction of new buildings
Requirements: These must have the primary energy demand (PED) as 10% lower than specified in the Near-Zero Energy Building (NZEB) requirement. The NZEB is the EU definition for a very high energy efficiency building. This definition can differ between member states.Renovation of existing buildings
Requirements: These must improve PED by 30% or meet the definition of ‘major renovation’ in the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). This meaning can vary between member states.Acquisition and ownership of buildings
Requirements: After December 31st 2020, this has the same requirements as new buildings.
The US has issued an executive order regarding AI regulation. It has eight areas of focus. See the breakdown here (and see the Fact sheet here).
Acquisitions
Heidelberg Materials (North America) acquires Bach & Co’s aggregate assets. The assets include a sand & gravel site and additional high-quality reserves within the company's existing Northern New York State footprint. More here.
Payapps, an Australian construction software company, acquired WebContractor, a UK company which provides the management of subcontractor payments applications to businesses. More here.
Percheron Capital acquired SafeBasements, a Minnesota company providing foundation repair and basement waterproofing services. More here.
News
Concrete Has a Big Carbon Footprint. Can Green Tech Fix It? (WSJ)
When Recycling Comes to the Construction Industry (Bloomberg)
Heat pumps are hot, but commercial retrofits face cold realities
Heat pumps are gaining traction due to their energy efficiency and reduced emissions vs other solutions.
Adoption is hampered due to initial expense, disruptions required for the retrofit process and the difficulty in selecting appropriate systems.
This can lead to 10-12 year timeframes for retrofit completion.
Why Cities Need to Be Sharing Ideas (Bloomberg)
If I missed anything this week, please reply and let me know! I’ll make sure to include it next week