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Construction’s Biggest Startup Competition Names Its 2023 Winners

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Madrid (ES), 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.