Contech startup contest taps 8 finalists

Dive Brief:

• A group of contech and venture capital firms led by Cemex Ventures, the investment arm of Madrid-based Cemex, has picked the eight finalists for the 2024 Construction Startup Competition, according to an Oct. 22 news release.
• The firms were selected from an international cohort of applicants across four categories: green construction, enhanced productivity, construction supply chain and future of construction.
• To cap off the competition, the firms will compete for cash prizes and gold, silver and bronze placements at contech giant Trimble’s Dimensions user conference Nov. 12.

Dive Insight:

This year’s iteration of the contest received applications from more than 70 countries, according to the release. Since its inception in 2017, more than 3,000 firms have applied to be a part of the competition.

Hosting the competition alongside Cemex Ventures are Trimble, equipment manufacturer Caterpillar, Haskell’s contech venture unit Dysruptek and contech investment firm Zacua Ventures, among other firms.

“This competition offers a prime opportunity to drive innovation in the Contech ecosystem by supporting leading entrepreneurs, fostering investments, pilots, and accelerating their breakthrough solutions — just like those of the eight winning startups,” Mateo Zimmermann Gonzalez, investment manager at Cemex Ventures, told Construction Dive via email.

The finalists in the competition are:

• GScan (Estonia): This startup uses cosmic rays to look inside critical infrastructure like bridges, tunnels, buildings and nuclear reactors. It’s the only tech capable of seeing more than 40 centimeters (15.7 inches) into concrete or steel, per the firm.
• Kaya AI (U.S.): The platform reduces supply chain risks and minimizes delays to project execution, according to the company. Its proprietary model learns from project data and incorporates progress updates from trades and suppliers to provide a more realistic view of when materials will arrive on the jobsite.
• Kraaft (France): The firm says its solution helps reconcile field and office teams, which often have difficulty communicating. They start with simple chats and augment those with construction-focused modules so that data gets structured semi-automatically.
• Mixteresting (Austria): The firm’s software lets customers develop carbon dioxide-efficient concrete by digitally simulating the mixing process, accelerating the development cycle by up to 10 times. This allows them to achieve 5-7% higher margins, Mixteresting claims, through more efficient and innovative concrete mixes and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by up to 20% through performance-based optimization.
• Raise Robotics (U.S.): This San Francisco-based startup specializes in advanced robotic systems for jobsites. Its current focus is on deploying robots that handle the installation and inspection of facade brackets on buildings, per the firm, helping human workers avoid the compromising position of hanging over the edge of a building.
• Revitalyze (Austria): The company reduces waste in the construction industry by matching valuable materials from demolition and dismantling projects with the demand for secondary materials from building material manufacturers via a proprietary solution, according to the company.
• Sodex Innovations (Austria): This device-oriented solution improves construction surveying by installing hardware such as laser scanners, Global Navigation Satellite System units and cameras directly on construction equipment. This enables machines to deliver digital twins of construction sites to a cloud solution in real time, according to the firm.
• Trunk Tools (U.S.): New York City-based Trunk Tools has developed an artificial intelligence platform to organize unstructured data, automate workflows and augment worker productivity. Its tool, TrunkText, identifies data discrepancies to track schedule misses. Providence, Rhode Island-based Gilbane Building Co. used the firm’s tech on the $456 million Baird Center expansion project in Milwaukee.