As summer temps remain high, construction technology firms feel warmth in a different way, thanks to their investors pouring more money into contech. Following 20% year-over-year growth in contech investment through the first quarter of the year, firms that offer innovations such as safety platforms and change order management have been hot targets for venture capital dollars.
Read below for more on these companies that have won funding in recent weeks.
HammerTech
$70 million
Melbourne, Australia-based construction safety software company HammerTech raised a $70 million growth investment from U.S.-based tech investment firm Riverwood Capital, the firm announced on Monday.
HammerTech says its platform is a one-stop solution for safety on a construction jobsite. It lets builders check on permits, manage orientations on the work site and connect everyone on the project from general contractors to subcontractors and tradespeople, per its website.
The new capital will help HammerTech spur growth and accelerate research and development, according to the release.
Adaptive
$19 million
New York City-based construction financial software firm Adaptive secured a $19 million Series A funding round, the company announced on Monday.
Adaptive provides an automated financial management software that’s designed specifically for small- or medium-sized construction companies, according to the release. The platform offers end-to-end financial management, which includes budgeting, cash flow analytics, expense tracking, accounts payable, accounts receivable, vendor management and electronic payments.
The funding will fuel Adaptive's growth and support the expansion of its engineering and product teams, while shoring up its efforts to reach more construction companies across the U.S., according to the firm.
Clearstory
$16 million
Walnut Creek, California-based Clearstory, which makes software that manages and streamlines the change order process, revealed its $16 million Series B financing round led by Prudence, the firm announced on June 27.
With Clearstory’s network, contractors can eliminate handwritten change order logs, per the company’s website. The firm’s software features a collaborative change order log, notifications for changes, change order request templates and digital time and material tags.
Every month, contractors share over 19,000 change orders worth more than $850 million on its network, per the release, and the company counts builders such as Suffolk, Clayco, Barton Malow and Swinerton among its customers.
Buildots
$15 million
Tel Aviv-based construction management software firm Buildots, which helps owners and managers manage progress and data on construction jobsites, announced a $15 million investment led by Intel Capital, the venture capital firm of technology behemoth Intel, the firm announced on July 11.
Buildots’ product is a comprehensive software platform that allows builders to track and manage different facets of construction while sticking to a set schedule. Managers can set tasks, and follow along as project teams work toward them, per the website.
Using artificial intelligence, the technology also provides objective progress reports and performance metrics, and its predictive analytics tools help construction project teams anticipate and mitigate delay risks before they escalate, via data collected by workers who walk the jobsite with 360-degree cameras attached to their hardhats. The company claims its performance-driven approach increases overall construction efficiency and reduces delays by up to 50%
This funding brings the company's total financing to $121 million as it continues to develop technology enhancements for its core construction management platform and fuel its growth, per a July 11 news release.
KC8 Capture Technologies
$6.7 million
Melbourne, Australia-based carbon capture startup KC8 Capture Technologies pulled in a funding round worth 10 million Australian dollars ($6.7 million) led by Perth-based Woodside Energy and Cemex Ventures, the contech-focused venture capital arm of Madrid-based Cemex.
KC8 helps the construction industry reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the use of fossil fuels, according to a July 8 news release from Cemex Ventures.
KC8 says its value proposition is its proprietary non-toxic, non-volatile solvent designed to have no impact on the environment, as opposed to traditional solvents. It’s also designed to enable up to 95% carbon dioxide capture, optimize energy efficiency by 15%, and cut down overall operating costs by 50% for partners in heavy industries compared to traditional solvents, per Cemex.
In the United States, KC8 is developing a Commercial Pilot Demonstration plant at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Carbon Capture Center in Wilsonville, Alabama, the firm said in its funding announcement.
Cambridge Electric Cement
$2.9 million
An offshoot of the British University of Cambridge, sustainable cement firm Cambridge Electric Cement has raised a 2.25 million pound ($2.9 million) seed round, the startup revealed on July 3.
The firm’s process for making low-carbon, recycled cement includes running it through the same electric arc furnaces as those used in steel recycling, per the release. The key innovation, it said, is the substitution of recovered cement paste for the lime used in the steel recycling process.
This co-production process avoids both the kiln-related energy and calcination process emissions from conventional cement production, and leverages existing steelmaking infrastructure.
The firm is working with its established industry partner network including Balfour Beatty on an industrial demonstrator project to certify and commercialize the product initially in low-risk, non-structural construction applications, per the release.
