Last Week in ConTech - 9 June 2025
New Global Study Reveals Infrastructure Cost Overrun Trends
Deep Insight: New Global Study Reveals Infrastructure Cost Overrun Trends
This week, researchers at the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability published a new study on construction costs for global energy infrastructure.
The study examined the cost overrun risks by analysing 662 energy infrastructures projects built in 83 countries from 1936 to 2024.
It found that runaway cost and delayed timelines were common across projects, with the average project costing 40% more than expected for construction with projects taking 2 years longer to complete than planned.
Positively, the rate of cost overruns has been declining since 1976. However, outcomes vary significantly depending on fuel source:
Nuclear plants are the ‘worst’ with costs typically doubling original estimates (an average of ~$1.5 billion over budget) and facing the most extreme delays.
Hydrogen infrastructure and carbon capture and storage (CCS) also show large average time and cost overruns.
In contrast, solar energy and electricity grid transmission projects are often completed ahead of schedule or below expected cost.
These results raise questions about the viability of global nuclear ambitions:
India plans to reach 100 GW of nuclear power by 2047.
The U.S. aims to triple nuclear capacity by 2050, with 10 large, conventional reactors under construction by 2030,
Most interestingly, the study found energy infrastructure exhibited diseconomies of scale with projects exceeding 1,561 megawatts in capacity demonstrating significantly higher risk of cost escalation (though this was not broken down by fuel type).
All of this is occurring under a backdrop of skilled worker shortages, threatening to exacerbate the cost and schedule pressures.
The U.S. is currently unable to fill almost a third of its 400,000 new engineering roles each year.
The UK will see 20% of its engineers retire by 2030.
Despite improvements in technology and falling hardware costs, these market dynamics risk slowing progress toward electrification. Governments, already burdened by historic deficits, may struggle to fund new infrastructure without risking debt spirals.
This could lead to higher energy costs for ratepayers, but also creates an opportunity for startups.
We’re seeing increased investment in grid tech and the growing use of construction robotics on solar farms, offering governments and developers new solutions to reduce costs and delays in energy infrastructure delivery.
In this issue there are:
9 Startup Fundings
12 Policy and Regulatory Changes
8 New National Infrastructure Projects & Priorities
0 New investment funds
2 Acquisitions
6 News articles
31 new jobs posted - view here
Reading time: 10 mins
Startup Funding
Home Services Contractors
Netic, a San Francisco startup, raised $20m in funding. They are building a ‘growth engine’ for HVAC firms which uses AI to help them to book appointments, automatically reach out to customers for maintenance and manage technician schedules. More here.
Notes:
Netic have developed algorithms fine tuned for this market segment.
For example, their AI can create market campaigns by predicting when customers might need maintenance through ingesting data such as impending storms, region and property type.
Residential construction management
Handoff AI, an Austin startup, raised $5.8m in funding. They are building a platform to streamline operations for remodeling contractors offering tools such as instant AI cost estimates based on natural language descriptions, integration to Lowe’s for accurate pricing, proposal generation, client management tools and invoicing. More here.
Notes:
There is an increasing number of startups focusing on the residential sector or home services technicians which is interesting as they have very different go to market strategies.
For example, Handoff AI is focusing on channels such as Facebook (1.6k likes), Instagram (3.1k followers), Youtube (200 subscribers, 100+ videos) for growth.
I suspect we will increasingly see these companies begin to sponsor influencers in their segment or prominent influencers who have Trades backgrounds, will build contracting businesses as they have lower customer acquisition costs.
If I was an early stage startup in this sector, I’d seriously consider sponsoring or providing equity to influencers in my niche to enable long term growth and alignment.
The reason why is that the residential contracting sector most closely follows B2C marketing strategies when compared to the commercial and infrastructure segments.
Geotechnical
InfinityStudio.AI, a New Zealand startup, raised Seed funding (undisclosed). They are developing a geotechnical engineering platform which replaces spreadsheet heavy workflows and offers services such as scheduling and digitising your project geotechnical data (for single sources of truth), advanced design modules for geotech analysis and design report generation. More here.
Land Development
REplace, an Israeli startup, raised $2.1m in funding. They have developed a solution which streamlines the development of renewable energy and data centre projects by analyzing over 50 data points such as land ownership, grid availability and permitting risks to assess where a site is viable for development. More here.
Robotics
Swap Robotics, a Canadian startup received investment (undisclosed, strategic). They have developed robots for utility scale solar construction, operations and maintenance assisting with solar panel laying during the construction phase and management of vegetation during the later phases. More here.
Project Management
Projectworks, a New Zealand startup, raised $12m in Series A funding. They are developing a platform to help professional services firms such as architects and engineers manage projects, finances and resources integrating core functions like time tracking, invoicing, resource planning, forecasting and reporting into one place. More here.
Industrialized Construction
Automated Architecture (AUAR), a London startup, raised £5.1m in seed funding. They are building a distributed and automated micro-factory network to deliver sustainable timber housing. More here.
Notes:
Builders can rent compact robotic micro-factories from AUAR that can locally produce the full timber structure of a home in just 12 hours and reduce on-site labour by up to 75%.
Their MasterBuilder software connects design directly to the robotic production automating everything from planning to fabrication, generating full design specs and providing real time cost estimates.
The factory produces modular timber frame panels which can be quickly assembled to create a variety of home designs.
Scanning
Lumoview, a German startup, raised €3m in funding. They have developed a handheld high precision hardware for capturing building data in just 2 seconds per room automatically processing and delivering this to clients. More here.
Notes:
Lumoview is going to market via two offerings:
Renting the LumoScanner
Users can rent the scanner, be provided with online training and manuals to use themselves.Scanning as a Service
Clients book appointments with Lumoview who come on site to scan the building.
It will be interesting to observe which offering gains stronger market traction and whether customers transition between the two models over time.
The ‘Scanning as a Service’ option aligns with the industry's preference for Outcome-as-a-Service models, as it avoids the need for in-house technical expertise.
However, this approach presents scalability challenges for Lumoview, as it requires an on-the-ground technician network across Germany.
Lumoview appears to mitigate this with a highly intuitive user experience, facilitated by their Capture app and a one-click scanning process.
A potential adoption path could involve users starting with the service model and transitioning to rental once they experience how easy the technology is to use.
Inspections
Twindo, a Dutch startup, raised €1m in funding. They are developing a field operations and digital inspections platform for teams working in renewable energy assisting with tasks such as reporting, scheduling and providing real time reporting. More here.
Policy and Regulatory Changes
US
Trump's tariffs to remain in effect after appeals court grants stay
A federal appeals court temporarily reinstated the most sweeping of President Donald Trump's tariffs.
This occurred a day after a U.S. trade court ruled that Trump had exceeded his authority in imposing the duties and ordered an immediate block on them.
Some sector-specific tariffs, such as on imports of steel, aluminum and automobiles, were imposed by Trump under separate authorities on national security grounds and were unaffected by the ruling.
White House unveils plan for tech-focused permit reforms
The Council on Environmental Quality has issued its Permitting Technology Action Plan, which seeks to modernize federal environmental review and permitting processes.
The Permitting Technology Action Plan contains:
Minimum functional requirements for environmental review and permitting systems;
An initial National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and permitting data and technology standard;
A timeline and implementation roadmap for agencies; and
A governance structure for implementation.
The California Environmental Quality Act requires proponents to disclose and, if possible, lessen the environmental effects of a project.
In practice, this has led to tomes of environmental impact reports, including volumes of soil testing and traffic modeling studies, and sometimes years of disputes in court.
There are two bills under debate:
Assembly Bill 609 would exempt most urban housing developments from CEQA.
Senate Bill 607 would in effect lessen the number of projects, housing and otherwise, that would need to complete a full environmental review, narrowing the law’s scope.
Energy Dept. Cancels $3.7 Billion for New Technologies to Lower Emissions
These were to companies trying to demonstrate technologies that might one day help tackle global warming.
Some of the 24 canceled awards would have gone to industrial companies that were aiming to reduce emissions from cement, iron, glass and chemicals production.
It included $1.3bn in low-carbon cement (Brimstone Energy, Heidelberg Materials, Sublime Systems, National Cement Company).
The total public support now pulled from the cement sector stands at $1.5bn.
These projects represented nearly 60% of planned low-carbon cement capacity in the US.
Notes:
According to Sightline Climate, these cancellations amount to a lost competitive edge in low-carbon material production.
The combination of OCED grants and tax credits was set to make the US the cheapest place in the world to produce low-carbon materials.
Anti-solar bills die in Texas House
Three “anti-solar” bills, SB 819, SB 388 and SB 715, appear dead after failing to meet Texas’s deadlines that would otherwise allow the legislation to progress.
SB 819 would have placed additional fees, permitting restrictions, setback requirements and regulatory mandates on utility-scale solar and wind projects in Texas.
SB 388 would have required at least half of all new generation in the ERCOT region come from “dispatchable generation other than energy storage.”
SB 715 aimed to establish a retroactive mandate that existing renewable energy installations install a backup energy source.
Downtown Boston zoning changes could allow buildings up to 700 feet tall
This would allow developers to construct new buildings up to 700 feet tall, or about 70 stories, in some areas.
The city has said the changes will allow for higher housing density, creating more homes to address the housing crisis.
Any residential development will have to set aside 20% of the units created as affordable housing under the existing inclusionary zoning rules.
Parking minimum requirements for new construction in Denver could soon go away for good
Denver’s zoning code currently requires a minimum number of parking spaces for new construction projects.
Market-rate apartments require one parking space per dwelling unit, with restaurants requiring nearly four parking spaces per 1,000 square feet of indoor space.
Under the new proposal, developers would be able to choose how many parking spots, if any, to include in building plans.
Colorado officials approved building codes for new residential and commercial structures that demand more energy efficiency.
It does so in specific ways that favor a transition from natural gas to electricity, heat pumps and other, greener sources.
The codes set up new requirements for buildings to earn a certain number of credits to achieve minimum Energy Rating Index scores.
A new study finds that construction costs run over budget for more than 60% of energy infrastructure projects worldwide.
The average project costs 40% more than expected for construction and takes almost two years longer than planned.
The average nuclear power plant has a construction cost overrun of 102.5% and ends up costing $1.56 billion more than expected.
China
China hopes to power AI boom with green energy in new data centre strategy
China is integrating the development of power-hungry data centres into its national energy strategy.
Under a new action plan, Beijing would coordinate data centre planning with energy infrastructure in areas and regions rich in new energy resources.
They plan to increase the share of clean energy used to power data centres by encouraging local wind and solar power through bundled transactions and on-site usage.
Data centres were projected to account for 2.4 per cent of China’s total electricity consumption, with the share exceeding 20 per cent in certain cities and regions.
South Korea
Seoul city revises construction contract rules to promote contractor partnerships
The Seoul city government announced that it has revised the 'special conditions for construction contracts in Seoul' so that the main contractor must directly carry out the work when a joint contract is made.
This revision is a follow-up measure to the abolition of the '50% direct construction obligation for construction projects in Seoul.'
They are currently implementing a direct construction ratio assessment during bidding.
It was prepared to promote a consortium between comprehensive and specialized construction companies through the expansion of bidding participation methods.
Vietnam
Vietnam considers using private capital for railway development
The draft law includes provisions to maximize resource mobilization from local governments and other economic sectors for railway infrastructure construction.
It encourages all organizations and individuals to invest in railway infrastructure through various contract models.
National Infrastructure Projects & Priorities
Global
Kuwait Wealth Fund Joins Microsoft, MGX’s $30 Billion AI Venture
Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund is joining a Microsoft Corp.-backed initiative to bankroll $30 billion in artificial intelligence infrastructure globally.
The Kuwait Investment Authority will become the first non-founder financial anchor in the AI Infrastructure Partnership.
Southeast Asia Joins Europe’s Calls to Defend Subsea Cables
Countries such as Singapore and Malaysia are becoming key hubs for the roughly 600 fiber-optic cables that carry nearly all of the world’s data.
The global undersea cable network stretches about 1.4 million kilometers (870,000 miles).
A spike in cable damage in European waters, particularly in the Baltic Sea, has heightened fears about the network’s vulnerability.
A rise in the sale of subsea cable systems could see investment reach $15.4 billion between 2024 and 2028.
US
Meta buys a nuclear power plant (more or less)
Meta announced that it was paying billions of dollars to keep an Illinois nuclear power plant running through 2047.
Before the recent boom in data center construction, nuclear reactors had faced a grim future as cheap wind, solar, and natural gas undercut their power-generating costs.
The surge in AI and cloud computing has sent tech companies searching for power, which in turn has led to a string of investments in nuclear startups.
Amazon announced plans to invest an estimated $10 billion in North Carolina to expand its data center infrastructure to support AI and cloud computing technologies.
Since 2010, Amazon has invested $12 billion in North Carolina.
China
BYD to roll out 15,000 megawatt fast chargers across China in new partnership push
The company confirmed new partnerships with major charging operators Xiaoju Charging and Xindietu aiming to build 15,000 units of megawatt fast chargers.
The goal is integrating more social capital into infrastructure development and making ultra-fast charging widely accessible to electric vehicle (EV) users.
The company envisions a future where EV charging is as fast and convenient as refuelling a traditional gasoline car.
India
PM Modi Unveils Rs 774 Billion Projects in Gujarat
These initiatives encompass infrastructure enhancements, educational advancements, and digital connectivity improvements across the state.
This includes the construction of classrooms, Wi-Fi connectivity and infrastructure projects from roads to water supply.
Sweden
Brookfield to Invest $10 Billion Building AI Hub in Sweden
Brookfield Asset Management plans to invest up to 95 billion kronor ($9.9 billion) developing artificial intelligence infrastructure in Sweden.
It will take 10 to 15 years to construct.
UAE
OpenAI Says It Will Build Massive Data Centers in the U.A.E.
The company’s new facility is part of a joint venture.
This includes Oracle, the chipmaker Nvidia, the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, the networking provider Cisco and G42, an Emirati artificial intelligence firm.
G42 is also expected to contribute money to the construction of OpenAI data centers in the United States.
For every dollar that the firm and its partners invest in the Emirates, they will invest an equivalent amount in the U.S. data centers.
While OpenAI did not say how much the Emirati facility would cost, its size suggests G42 will invest tens of billions of dollars in each country.
Acquisitions
Trimble, a global construction software provider, acquired StructShare, a company providing digital procurement and materials management solutions. More here.
Notes:
With this addition, Trimble is introducing Trimble Materials, a new procurement and materials management solution for construction contractors providing end-to-end purchasing, inventory, and accounts payable software.
Cormi.com, an Israeli company providing a process and workforce management tool for construction, merged with Doss, a San Francisco enterprise resource planning platform. More here.
News
Can’t Afford an Ebike? Borrow One for Free From a Lending Library
Programs that let people borrow an ebike for a few days at a time are blooming around the US.
They’re convenient for all, but they also provide free transport for those priced out of bike ownership.
There are approximately 50 ebike libraries around the US.
ICE raids on building sites stoke fear, uncertainty
KNUBA develops concrete for 3D printing of buildings using debris from destroyed structures
Scientists from the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture (KNUBA) have begun it to create innovative concrete mixtures using waste from destroyed structures.
Ratos Seeks $160 Million from IPO of Nordic Construction Unit (Bloomberg)
Sentia builds commercial buildings, hospitals, universities and cultural centers for public and private clients.
Employing about 1,400 workers, the company generated revenues of 10.6 billion kroner (~$1.05b USD)in 2024, with a margin on earnings before interest and taxes of 5.4%.
Neglecting Grids Would Be the Ultimate Power Failure (Bloomberg)
The US alone will require 57% more transmission infrastructure by 2035.
Why we stopped building subways cheaply
If I missed anything this week, please reply and let me know! I’ll make sure to include it next week.