Reconstruct, a SaaS contech startup, recently announced $2.4M in seed funding, led by Serra Ventures. The company was founded in 2016 in Illinois but will move its headquarters out to Silicon Valley. Users of the product already include industry heavyweights Gilbane, Turner, and Clayco.
Calling itself an integrator of the “ABCs” of construction tech (artificial intelligence, BIM, and computer vision), the company’s product is a software tool that simultaneously applies reality capturing, BIM, and project scheduling.
Reconstruct assembles images and data from drones, handheld cameras, and laser scanners to create 3D models of a project during construction. Simultaneously, the model integrates the project schedule from Oracle’s Primavera, Microsoft Project, and BIM models. This allows users to visually track progress, analyze productivity, and anticipate delays through the product’s predictive analytics and AI capabilities.
Along with the seed funding, Reconstruct announced Zak MacRunnels as CEO. “We are the only company that offers computer vision and artificial intelligence for construction management. Our next chapter is all about growth and scale with customers to make them more productive with the resource constraints that they are all facing today,” he said in a press release.
Rob Schultz, the managing partner at Serra Ventures, will become the Chairman of Reconstruct thanks to the seed funding. “We believe that this type of innovation is sorely needed in the construction industry. Reconstruct now has the ideal technical and go-to-market teams to deliver on the vision,” he said.
Analysis from AEC Labs:
It’s not just projects under construction that can benefit from Reconstruct’s offering. The product can model existing infrastructure – from highways to bridges and rail systems – and allow teams to track high-resolution, geotagged photos over time, improving analysis and streamlining inspection reports.
In an era where infrastructure assets are crumbling and, in many locations, in dire need of repair, this type of tool could be invaluable to agencies and others that are preparing to upgrade or repair existing systems.
The idea that more data and artificial intelligence could proactively identify potential problem projects and other risks in the field is also important. These types of technologies are fledgling but on the horizon – we wrote about one, whose origins are in the legal industry, previously here at AEC Labs.
Depending on its efficacy, software that prevents margin erosion and protects stakeholders’ bottom lines could offer a powerful value proposition across the construction industry. And, as products like Reconstruct’s mature, it will be instructive to see how the industry responds to the type of data they generate.
