Meet the Construction Startup Competition 2023 winners

Press release

Construction’s Biggest Startup Competition Names Its 2023 Winners

Madrid, Spain. October 19, 2023 – Construction Startup Competition 2023, the biggest startup competition in the construction industry, named its winners today. The competition’s 7th edition – led by Cemex Ventures and its partners from Black & Veatch, Dysruptek by Haskell, Ferrovial, Hilti, VINCI Group’s Leonard, NOVA by Saint-Gobain, Trimble, and Zacua Ventures – searches for the ‘Builders of the Future’ who are creating a more sustainable, efficient, on time, and innovative construction industry today. 

Eight startups were announced as this year’s winners, each corresponding to one of the competition’s four market-driven verticals. In the “Green Construction” vertical, the winners were Firstplanit [United Kingdom] and Vizcab [France]. Frontline [Singapore], FYLD [United Kingdom], and RodRadar [Israel] were the winners of the “Enhanced Productivity” vertical, while Construex [Ecuador] won under the “Construction Supply Chain” vertical. In the “Future of Construction” vertical, the winners were Civ Robotics [United States] and sensmore [Germany].

The eight outstanding finalists will go on to compete for the gold, silver, and bronze medals at Pitch Day 2023, held at Trimble’s Dimensions User Conference on Nov. 7, 2023, in Las Vegas, Nevada. In addition to the competition’s benefits – pitching to executive representatives, networking with industry leaders, access to capital investment and real-scale pilots – for the first time in the competition’s history, the gold, silver, and bronze medalists will receive cash prizes at Pitch Day. The Construction Startup Competition winners will also benefit from the opportunity to attend Dimensions which is one of the construction industry’s biggest conferences, to connect with peer startup founders, innovators, and investors from across the industry.

This year, the Construction Startup Competition turns 7 years old. Since its kickoff in 2017, the competition has received almost 3,000 applications from over 80 countries, and participating startups have gone on to create notable change in the construction industry. Hosted by Cemex Ventures and its partners, Construction Startup Competition challenges disruptors in the industry – from large multinationals to early-stage startups – to foster collaboration and inspire innovation. A traditionally slow-to-evolve industry, the construction sector is ripe for change. For more information about the competition, visit www.cemexventures.com/constructionstartupcompetition

ANNEX: CONSTRUCTION STARTUP COMPETITION 2023 WINNERS DESCRIPTIONS

• Civ Robotics (United States) – Civ Robotics builds autonomous layout systems for the construction industry with an emphasis on solar farm and road projects that require thousands of coordinates a day with a press of a button: https://www.civrobotics.com/

• Construex (Ecuador) –  Construex digitizes construction suppliers across Latin America, offering software tools to suppliers (mostly SMBs) to help them manage their digital presence, find and manage clients, and grow their businesses with data. Real estate developers can find the suppliers they need with Construex, while decreasing time and costs: https://construex.com.ec/ 

• Firstplanit (United Kingdom) – Firstplanit provides designers, developers, and manufacturers with insights on the Environmental, Social, Health, and Monetary benefits of building materials and products through a holistic, transparent, data-driven, user-friendly digital platform.  Behind Firstplanit is a group of built environment researchers, architects, engineers and tech experts whose mission is to incorporate sustainability into every building product decision in the construction industry: https://www.firstplanit.com/  

• Frontline (Singapore) – Frontline is a construction planning simulation and optimization platform. The company has developed proprietary optimization algorithms that enable construction companies, operators, and contractors to quickly identify best-in-class construction plans with optimal activity sequencing and resource allocation. Their software helps businesses save time and money while improving efficiency: https://www.frontlinec.com/ 

• FYLD (United Kingdom) – FYLD is an AI-driven work execution platform bringing real time remote site visibility to construction operations. Workers use the FYLD platform to record work and safety related activities using unstructured data (video, audio, text) which FYLD’s AI (NLP, computer vision, predictive reasoning) analyses in real time to enable remote managers to make better operating decisions about where to focus their attention to deliver better performance, improve site safety and manage contractors: https://www.fyld.ai/ 

• RodRadar (Israel) – RodRadar offers an unprecedented technology, Live Dig Radar® (LDR), which automatically detects underground utility infrastructure in real-time, during excavation, without the need for expert analysis, improving construction safety and productivity. Its revolutionary debut product, LDR Excavate™, an excavator digging bucket with integrated LDR radar-imaging technology, accurately detects and alerts the excavator operator of all types of pipes and utilities, including gas, power, communications, fiber-optics, water, oil and chemicals – in different soils and types of substrates: https://rodradar.com/ 
• sensmore (Germany) – sensmore is an AI Automation 2.0 software company based in Berlin, Germany, leveraging novel radar technology and artificial intelligence to solve automation challenges for heavy machinery in even the most severe conditions in contrast to vision-based systems. Our plug-and-play, vehicle-agnostic software is deployable across mining, quarries, and similar sectors, enhancing safety and boosting production insights to increase productivity, cut costs, and lower emissions: https://www.sensmore.ai/ 
• Vizcab (France) – Vizcab is the leading 360° Building Carbon Platform, focusing on the embodied carbon impact of materials and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), offering comprehensive solutions from carbon budgeting to regulatory accounting and reporting. Our services benefit the entire construction value chain, with a primary focus on empowering developers to formulate high-ROI carbon-to-cost strategies. Vizcab harnesses an ever-expanding building carbon data lake encompassing 11 million square meters of construction, simplifying data science and machine learning. We prioritize collaboration and cooperation, exemplified by our API strategy connecting the entire construction ecosystem to our cutting-edge technologies: https://vizcab.io/

ABOUT CONSTRUCTION STARTUP COMPETITION

Since its first edition in 2017, startups from more than 80 countries have participated in the biggest challenge aimed at startups in the construction industry, the Construction Startup Competition. Many entrepreneurs have gone on to collaborate with the participating companies after applying to the competition. Given the global outreach of its partners, the competition seeks to identify the most innovative solutions from around the world to continue growing the Contech ecosystem and begin agile implementation of the innovative technologies and business models.

ABOUT CEMEX VENTURES

Launched in 2017, Cemex Ventures focuses on helping overcome the main challenges and capitalizing on the opportunity areas in the construction ecosystem through sustainable solutions. Cemex Ventures has developed an open collaborative platform to lead the revolution of the construction industry, engaging startups, entrepreneurs, universities, and other stakeholders to tackle the challenges in the construction environment and shape the industry’s future. For more information on Cemex Ventures, please visit: www.cemexventures.com 

ABOUT BLACK & VEATCH

Black & Veatch is a 100-percent employee-owned global engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company with a more than 100-year track record of innovation in sustainable infrastructure. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people around the world by addressing the resilience and reliability of our most important infrastructure assets. Follow us on www.bv.com and on social media.

ABOUT DYSRUPTEK

Formed in 2018, Dysruptek is the venture investment arm of The Haskell Company. Dysruptek seeks to invest in disruptive Architecture, Engineering and Construction technologies reshaping the built world. Dysruptek acts as an agent of change and partner to innovators driving meaningful impact across the industry. Invest. Invent. Innovate. For more information, please visit: www.dysruptek.com 

ABOUT FERROVIAL

Ferrovial is a leading global infrastructure operator committed to developing sustainable infrastructures. It is a member of Spain’s blue-chip IBEX 35 index and is also included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and FTSE4Good Index; all its operations are conducted in compliance with the principles of the UN Global Compact, which the company adopted in 2002. For more information on Ferrovial, please visit: www.ferrovial.com

ABOUT HILTI GROUP

The Hilti Group supplies the worldwide construction and energy industries with technologically leading products, systems, software and services. With about 33,000 team members in over 120 countries the company stands for direct customer relationships, quality and innovation. Hilti generated annual sales of more than CHF 6.3 billion in 2022. The headquarters of the Hilti Group have been located in Schaan, Liechtenstein, since its founding in 1941. The company is privately owned by the Martin Hilti Family Trust, which ensures its long-term continuity. The Hilti Group’s purpose is making construction better, based on a passionate and inclusive global team and a caring and performance-oriented culture. To learn more about Hilti, please visit: www.hilti.group.

ABOUT VINCI GROUP’S LEONARD

Leonard is the innovation and foresight platform set up by VINCI, a global player in concessions, energy and construction businesses, employing more than 272,000 people in more than 120 countries. Leonard was created to imagine the future of the Group’s business lines and is tasked with watching emerging trends in VINCI’s areas of expertise and markets, identifying new growth opportunities, and setting up incubation and acceleration programs for Group employees as well as start-ups. Each year, Leonard supports the acceleration and development of over 40 of the best innovative projects in construction, mobility, energy and real estate and now has 300 solutions in portfolio. To house these programs and start conversations with all the people blazing new trails in VINCI’s business lines, Leonard opened Leonard:Paris, a 5,000 square meters lab in Paris. Since 2020, Leonard has been expanding operations in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Latin America. To find out more about Leonard: https://leonard.vinci.com/en/

ABOUT NOVA BY SAINT-GOBAIN

NOVA, the external venturing arm of Saint-Gobain, identifies forward-thinking startups around the world whose philosophies align with Saint-Gobain’s focus on sustainability. It helps those startups nurture their ideas and grow their companies to scale through partnerships and investment. With a presence in Asia, Europe and North America, NOVA connects the global startup community with the power, resources, and experience of Saint-Gobain to address the needs of today and challenges of tomorrow. Learn more by visiting https://www.nova-saint-gobain.com 

ABOUT TRIMBLE

Dedicated to the world’s tomorrow, Trimble is a technology company delivering solutions that enable our customers to work in new ways to measure, build, grow and move goods for a better quality of life. Core technologies in positioning, modeling, connectivity and data analytics connect the digital and physical worlds to improve productivity, quality, safety, transparency and sustainability. From purpose-built products and enterprise lifecycle solutions to industry cloud services, Trimble is transforming critical industries such as construction, geospatial, agriculture and transportation to power an interconnected world of work. For more information about Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB), visit: www.trimble.com. 

ABOUT TRIMBLE VENTURES

Launched in 2021, Trimble Ventures is a corporate venture capital fund focused on investing in early and growth-stage companies that align with Trimble’s mission of transforming work in the agriculture, construction, geospatial and transportation industries. The fund deploys strategic capital to accelerate the growth of innovative companies and partners that complement Trimble’s products, technology platforms and support its customer’s work. Trimble Ventures targets investing in companies with technologies and solutions related to hardware and software applications; artificial intelligence; augmented, virtual and mixed reality; autonomy and robotics; blockchain; the Internet of Things (IoT) and analytics; and sustainability. For more information on Trimble Ventures, visit: ventures.trimble.com

ABOUT ZACUA VENTURES

Zacua Ventures is a global early-stage venture fund tackling world’s biggest challenges across Sustainability, Productivity and Urbanization and backed by the most innovative corporates in the built world. Zacua is led by partners with more than 30 years of combined industry experience and who have been investing in construction tech for the past decade. With regional presence in San Francisco, Madrid and Singapore, Zacua helps entrepreneurs to build and strengthen their value proposition and scale their businesses globally, leveraging deep corporate networks. For more information, please visit: www.zacuaventures.com