Buildots raises $130m to expand construction AI

Israeli-founded construction technology company Buildots has raised $130 million to expand its AI-powered platform, which is used by some of Britain’s largest contractors to reduce delays on major building projects.

The company, whose European headquarters is in London, works with UK construction groups including Wates, Sir Robert McAlpine, Kier, Multiplex and Integrated Health Projects.

The funding round was led by O.G. Venture Partners, with backing from Mohari Ventures, Qumra Capital, Human Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Avigdor Willenz, Intel Capital, Poalim Equity and Viola Growth. It brings the total raised by Buildots to $297 million.

Buildots chief executive and co-founder Roy Danon said: “Every other major industry hands its leaders a data layer to lean on. Construction never got one.

“That is what we set out to create at Buildots. Our mission has never been about replacing human judgment, but about giving construction leaders something solid to stand on.”

Founded in 2018 by Israeli military intelligence veterans Roy Danon, Yakir Sudry and London-based Aviv Leibovici, Buildots uses artificial intelligence and computer vision to give construction leaders an accurate, real-time picture of progress across their projects.

Leibovici, the company’s co-founder and chief product officer, was previously recognised in Jewish News’ Tech & Digital 40 Under 40 list.

Buildots’ technology was first deployed in Britain, even before Israel, and the UK has become one of its most established markets.

A member of a construction team walks around a site wearing a 360-degree camera on a hard hat. The footage is processed by Buildots’ technology and compared with the project’s plans and schedule, creating a digital replica of the development and identifying delays, incomplete work and potential risks.

The company says its platform can help reduce avoidable construction delays by as much as 50 percent.

Buildots has recorded a multi-year run of threefold annual revenue growth as contractors increasingly use its technology across entire portfolios rather than individual projects.

Danon said rising demand for data centres, manufacturing facilities, defence projects and energy infrastructure had raised the stakes for the construction industry.

“Construction has become more complex, timelines have gotten shorter, and the cost of getting it wrong has increased.”

Buildots plans to use the investment to expand its enterprise deployments across Europe, North America and the Middle East, cover more of the construction lifecycle and turn project data into wider insights for business leaders.

Danon added: “Eight years later, that gap matters more than ever. Construction is now the bottleneck on global economic growth: the AI data center buildout, manufacturing’s re-industrialization, the defense boom and the race to scale energy.

“A vision people once called ‘crazy’ is now simply how construction gets done.”

Buildots’ platform has been deployed on residential and commercial developments, hospitals, data centres, battery plants and semiconductor facilities. Intel, one of its investors, uses the technology across its global semiconductor construction programme.

The company has offices in London, Tel Aviv and Chicago and employs more than 300 people across three continents.