Always on the lookout for groundbreaking innovations, we are excited to share our latest venture through our exclusive ‘Deep Dive’ content series. We understand your time is valuable, so we’ve done the heavy lifting to bring you comprehensive insights into our latest strategic investment.
In our most recent move, we have invested in Vizcab, the bronze medal winner of Construction Startup Competition 2023 and green construction startup in our list of the Top 50 Contech Startups redefining the Contech ecosystem.
Below we explore our partnership with the green construction startup so you can better understand our investment and learn about the new addition to our investment portfolio.
Let’s take a deeper dive!
What – does Vizcab do?
Vizcab has developed a digital platform to measure and reduce the carbon impact of construction projects. This revolutionary platform is aimed at developers, architects, engineers and building manufacturers, and offers SaaS solutions that enable carbon emissions to be accurately measured at separate phases in a building’s life cycle.
Vizcab’s product suite makes this complicated process simple by incorporating 5 digital services that permit manufacturers, designers, real estate developers, and builders to benchmark building materials and practices, set building sustainability strategies, automate LCAs into the construction plan, measure performance to identify impactful insights, and get the full overview of real estate developers’ scope 3 emissions all while staying connected in one integrated platform.
Why – invest in Vizcab?
In a world where addressing embodied carbon in the built environment is paramount for mitigating the impacts of climate change, investing in Vizcab emerges as a strategic imperative. The urgency stems from the growing regulatory landscape, particularly within the European Union, where building construction is now subject to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) requirements across nine countries, but is sure to expand. Looking ahead, the EPDB directive mandates LCA for new buildings (less than 2000 m2) by 2027 and extends this requirement to all buildings by 2030.
What sets Vizcab apart is its digital end-to-end platform, a revolutionary solution that tackles the traditionally slow, complex, and nontransparent current processes in our industry. By streamlining workflows, Vizcab not only adheres to evolving market needs but also anticipates them. This agility becomes increasingly critical each year as regulations and new standards become more stringent.
As the corporate venture capital and open innovation unit of Cemex, Cemex Ventures looks to build relationships and strategically invest in promising startups with modern technologies and business models that improve efficiency, processes, and operations, but that also adhere to the company’s ambitious climate and sustainability goals.
How – will Vizcab and Cemex help each other achieve their objectives?
Cemex Ventures aims to forge a mutually beneficial partnership with Vizcab to help all three entities (Cemex, Cemex Ventures, and Vizcab) achieve their respective objectives. Here’s how:
Strategic investment: By strategically investing in Vizcab, Cemex Ventures seeks to contribute to the development and success of a pioneering startup that aligns with its commitment to fostering innovation under its Green Construction focus area. The investment in this startup is especially strategic and valuable as its 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.
Cemex Ventures seeks to support Vizcab by:
- Developing a partnership with Cemex to suggest products that can decrease the embodied carbon of Vizcab’s customers.
- Test and improve the value offered to manufacturers and suppliers.
- Connecting Vizcab to our construction and sustainability ecosystem and partners.
- Provide valuable industry perspectives and feedback.
Sustainability: In turn, Vizcab’s cutting-edge digital platform for measuring and reducing the carbon emissions of construction projects contributes to Cemex’s Future in Action sustainability program and its Investment and Partnerships pillar, which encompasses the company’s strategic sustainable investments. Vizcab’s sustainable product library, which permits the building materials manufacturer to reach more customers and foster the use of lower-carbon materials, such as Cemex’s Vertua portfolio of sustainable products.
Customer-centric products & services: This investment is aligned with Cemex’s strategic priority: Customer Centricity, which focuses on creating value for customers by understanding and proactively meeting their needs continuously.
Digital innovation: Vizcab’s solution helps construction stakeholders throughout the entire construction value chain build more efficiently and intelligently. As a leading building materials manufacturer, Vizcab’s platform permits Cemex to digitize its catalog of sustainable products and services to ensure that designers, builders, and developers can conveniently benchmark, browse and manage building materials to find the best solutions for their projects.
Who – is Vizcab?
Since 2015, the Lyon, France-based startup specializes in providing advanced solutions to measure and manage the carbon emissions embedded in construction projects.
What is their mission? Their mission is to provide construction stakeholders with the fastest, most powerful, and collaborative Building Life Cycle Analysis service. They believe that digital technology and data sciences hold the potential to catalyze the energy-carbon transition in the building sector, making it beneficial for the entire industry.
Their challenge is to make the power of Building Life Cycle Analyses accessible to construction and real estate professionals. Through technologies related to data science and artificial intelligence, they offer the opportunity to guide their companies towards carbon neutrality by 2050.
Contact us!
Whether you are a startup, SME, corporate, building professional, media journalist, or just want to find out more, we encourage you to contact us through our website or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
You can also keep up to date with the newest Contech deals and news by subscribing to our biweekly Contech Tacos newsletter!
Press release
Cemex Ventures invests in digital solution aiming to reduce construction’s CO2 footprint
Madrid, Spain. November 21, 2023. Cemex Ventures, Cemex’s corporate venture capital (CVC) and open innovation unit, announced today its investment in Vizcab, a French startup whose digital platform enables different developers and architecture, engineering & construction (AEC) stakeholders to assess and work towards reducing CO2 emissions across the construction value chain.
Assessing and working towards reducing embodied carbon in the construction materials industry can contribute to reduce the impact of climate change in the short-term. Vizcab’s holistic solution provides a comprehensive view of a building’s carbon footprint throughout its entire lifecycle from start to end-of-life – from a building’s embodied carbon to its operational carbon emissions. Vizcab’s product suite makes this complicated process simple by incorporating 5 digital services that permit manufacturers, designers, real estate developers, and builders to benchmark building materials and practices, set building sustainability strategies, automate life cycle assessments (“LCAs”) into the construction plan, measure performance to identify impactful insights, and get a full overview of real estate developers’ scope 3 emissions all while staying connected in one integrated platform.
Vizcab’s goal is to build more sustainable buildings that are able to comply with stricter environmental standards and regulations. Governments are more frequently requiring from stakeholders across the global construction value chain. Governmental regulation, such as the “RE 2020” in France, has accelerated the use of Vizcab’s platform that can make LCA and optimizations simpler and faster.
“Vizcab’s exhaustive solution enables cooperation between different stakeholders to manage carbon strategies throughout a project’s lifecycle, a critical challenge in our complex and interconnected industry. This solution also implements the use of building materials with sustainable attributes, such as Cemex’s Vertua portfolio of products,” said Gonzalo Galindo, Head of Cemex Ventures. “As Cemex’s open innovation unit, Cemex Ventures is dedicated to investing in solutions that promote construction that considers sustainability and advance the decarbonization goals of our industry, as is reflected by our Green Construction investment pillar.”
This investment strengthens Cemex’s commitment to delivering customer-centric products and services. Moreover, this strategic investment bolsters Cemex Ventures’ objective to foster the construction industry revolution by promoting the growth of digital solutions that enhance productivity and efficiency.
About Vizcab
Vizcab is a Lyon-based software platform founded in 2015 by Dr. Thomas Jusselme and Guillaume Lafont, with expertise in sustainable design. It serves real estate developers, architects, and construction engineers. Vizcab offers a data-driven solution that calculates LCA of buildings, aiding compliance with local regulations. It also allows real estate developers to gauge their carbon performance, expedite ESG reporting, and work towards net-zero emissions. Vizcab has 120 customers (2000+ users), all over the construction value chain. It integrates with digital construction tools like Buildrz, Saqara, or Revit. Future plans include involving building material manufacturers to promote their products with sustainable attributes.
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 solutions that consider sustainability. 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: cemex.growlab.es
About Cemex
Cemex is a global construction materials company that is building a better future through products and solutions that focus on sustainability. Cemex is committed to achieving carbon neutrality through relentless innovation and industry-leading research and development. Cemex is at the forefront of the circular economy in the construction value chain and is pioneering ways to increase the use of waste and residues as alternative raw materials and fuels in its operations with the help of new technologies. Cemex offers cement, ready-mix concrete, aggregates, and urbanization solutions in growing markets around the world, powered by a multinational workforce focused on providing a superior customer experience enabled by digital technologies. For more information, please visit: www.cemex.com
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Cemex Ventures BV is an indirect subsidiary of Cemex, S.A.B. de C.V.. Except as the context otherwise may require, references in this press release to “Cemex,” ”we,” ”us,” ”our,” refer to Cemex, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE: CX) and its consolidated subsidiaries. This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws. Cemex intends these forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements in the U.S. federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements reflect Cemex’s current expectations and projections about future events based on Cemex’s knowledge of present facts and circumstances and assumptions about future events, as well as Cemex’s current plans based on such facts and circumstances, unless otherwise indicated. These statements necessarily involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from Cemex’s expectations, including, among others, risks, uncertainties, and assumptions discussed in Cemex’s most recent annual report and detailed from time to time in Cemex’s other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Mexican Stock Exchange (Bolsa Mexicana de Valores), which factors are incorporated herein by reference, which if materialized could ultimately lead to Cemex’s expectations, expected results, and/or the investment and projects referred herein not producing the expected benefits and/or results. Forward-looking statements should not be considered guarantees of future performance, nor the results or developments are indicative of results or developments in subsequent periods. These factors may be revised or supplemented, and the information contained in this press release is subject to change without notice, but Cemex is not under, and expressly disclaims, any obligation to update or correct this press release or revise any forward-looking statement contained herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events or circumstances. Any or all of Cemex’s forward-looking statements may turn out to be inaccurate. Accordingly, undue reliance on forward-looking statements should not be placed, as such forward-looking statements speak only as of the dates on which they are made. The content of this press release is for informational purposes only, and you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Cemex is not responsible for any third-party information referenced in this press release.
There is currently no single globally recognized or accepted, consistent, and comparable set of definitions or standards (legal, regulatory, or otherwise) of, nor widespread cross-market consensus i) as to what constitutes, a ‘green’, ‘social,’ or ‘sustainable’ or having equivalent-labelled activity, product, or asset; or ii) as to what precise attributes are required for a particular activity, product, or asset to be defined as ‘green’, ‘social,’ or ‘sustainable’ or such other equivalent label; or iii) as to climate and sustainable funding and financing activities and their classification and reporting. Therefore, there is little certainty, and no assurance or representation is given that such activities and/or reporting of those activities will meet any present or future expectations or requirements for describing or classifying funding and financing activities as ‘green’, ‘social’, or ‘sustainable’ or attributing similar labels. We expect policies, regulatory requirements, standards, and definitions to be developed and continuously evolve over time.
