Polish construction tech startup AI Clearing raises $14 million
The Poland-born, Texas-located startup AI Clearing helps construction companies track how work is progressing on large construction and infrastructure sites, such as highways, airports, railways and solar farms.
In development since 2019, its solution analyses data collected by a mobile app used by onsite workers, as well as images captured by drones, cross-referencing them with project plans and schedules. Its aims? To give its customers a fully automated daily update of construction progress, while also detecting any anomalies in the work’s progress, such as delays and budget overruns.
To accelerate the platform’s development, AI Clearing has just raised a $14 million Series A led by American VCs Prudence and FJ Labs, as well as Polish VCs Inovo and Innovation Nest, and the Estonian VC Tera Ventures. The company has around sixty employees in Poland and the US.
French startup Kraaft raises €3.2 million for its construction industry messaging app
The French construction industry messaging app Kraaft has just announced it has received more than €3.2 million from Chalfen Ventures, Stride VC, OSS Ventures and several business angels. These funds will enable the startup to continue developing its solution, while strengthening its position in the French market, where it already works with more than 300 construction companies.
Launched in 2020, this “super messaging app” enables users to centralise all discussions related to a construction site within the same interface, in a real-time group conversation. Unlike a traditional messaging system, users can use specialised modules to better manage their projects (photo geolocation, document and plan sharing, messages classification, intervention reports and security audits, etc.).
Its clients are both small construction companies and major industry names. The startup is aiming to have around 10,000 users by the end of the year and is considering an international rollout. What’s more, Kraaft received support from Leonard’s CATALYST program, which gives mature innovative solutions the resources they need to deploy their services and products in partnership with VINCI Business Units.
At One Ventures announces a new $375 million climate tech fund with a part focusing on construction tech
In 2020, Tom Chi, founding member of Google X, launched At One Ventures, a venture capital company specialising in climate tech. Three years later, he recently announced the launch of a $375 million second fund, which is more than double its predecessor ($150 million).
Like the first fund, Fund II will focus on backing seed-stage startups which develop disruptive technologies that could transform the most polluting sectors, such as construction, energy, transportation, food and agriculture. Since its creation, At One Ventures has built up a globally distributed portfolio of 35 investments, with 70% of companies in North America, 15% in Europe and 15% in Africa, South America and Israel.
Unlike other players in the climate tech sector, the fund don’t solely focus on reducing carbon emissions, and is more interested in all the impacts of human activity on the planet. As such, five of the 35 companies in its portfolio are active in the field of biodiversity, such as Dendra, which provides automated ecosystem restoration by using drones to plant trees and monitor their growth. At One Ventures plans to significantly increase its investments in so-called “regenerative” startups by 2025.
Fund II was raised from several investors including GenZero, the World Wildlife Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, CalSTRS and the New Mexico State Investment Council (NMSIC). It also received funding and support from individual investors and family offices, such as One Small Planet, Toba Capital and the Valhalla Foundation.
There’s more…
German climate tech Purpose Green raises $3.3 million to decarbonise buildings using digital twins – Read more at Tech.eu
American VC Alpaca launches a construction tech fund – Read more at Techcrunch
German startup Orbem raises $30 million for its MRI solution which could revolutionise the construction sector – Read more at Silicon Canals
Germany’s VARM announces pre-seed funding to accelerate household decarbonisation – Read more at Silicon Canals
Austrian startup Infrared City raises €1 million pre-seed funding to build more resilient cities – Read more at Tech.eu
Bedrock Energy raises $8.5 million to develop geothermal energy in the US – Read more at Yahoo Finance
