Venture West 2023 Pre-Event Forum Meetings

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The 2023 Venture West pre-conference meetings highlighted many West Coast members in forums and presentations and offered sector-specific attendees a space to dig into trends they are concerned or excited by in their corner of the market.

Read about the E&C Forum that highlighted failed technology adoption integrations with presentations from DPR, the Venture Forum that provided a presentation on the current state of the market and a case study in assessing a CVC’s performance,  the Formwork Labs Customer Kick-Off where the 2023 cohort had the chance to interact with potential customers, and finally the Women in Construction Tech event at the Fieldwire headquarters where industry leaders discussed taking risks with a Keynote presentation from the CEO of FieldWire.

March E&C Technology Adoption Forum

On Monday, March 20th, BuiltWorlds’ E&C Tech Adoption Leaders Forum met in the WeWork space of San Francisco’s Salesforce Tower as part of Venture West’s Pre-Conference events. Attendees brought a wide range of perspectives spanning five countries including the United States, Dubai, France, Germany, and Canada. DPR’s Tristen Magallanes, Director of Product Incubation, Tyler Williams, Field Innovation Leader, and Henning Roedel, Robotics Leader, led the conversation on learning opportunities from failed technology adoption. For Tristen and Tyler, the quote “we can never lose, we either learn or we win” describes their stance on adoption perfectly. Conversations focussed on defining success, identifying the right people, product readiness, and when/what to pilot.

March Venture Forum

The Venture Forum meeting took place at DPR’s beautiful downtown SF office, where the head of WND Ventures (DPR’s Venture arm), Kaushal Diwan, kicked off this pre-conference event with a presentation breaking down the corporate venture capital (CVC) group’s heavily strategically driven investment approach. This was followed up by a macro/micro capital markets & venture focused breakdown on the state of built environment by BuiltWorld’s Director of Investment & Research, Daniel Laboe.
Next, Micah Kotch, Managing Partner at Balckhorn Ventures, examined the agnostic industry digitalizing tailwinds, how his venture group is capitalizing on the unique opportunity the industry 4.0 presents, and the return potential for the possible corporate LPs for Blackhorn’s soon-to-launch Fund IV.
The program concluded with a quantitative case study from Eric Whobrey, Managing Partner at Arco Ventures & Soil Connect’s Founder, Cliff Fetner, who provide the Venture Forum with actionable insights into how to assess a CVC’s operational performance in the built world.

Formwork Labs Customer Convo Kick-Off

The Formwork Labs cohort met in person at Brick & Mortar Ventures’ downtown SF office. The group heard from several speakers on the topic of: legal best formation best practices, product strategy and had the opportunity to work with potential customers and gain feedback from several BuiltWorlds members. Participating members included companies such as: Dystruptek, STO Building, Hensel Phelps, Goldbeck, Helios, Swinerton, Granite, EllisDon and Alec.

Women in Construction Tech Meet Up

The Women in Construction Tech (WCT), a community dedicated to creating opportunities and developing relationships for women driving innovation in the construction industry, hosted a Pre-Conference event at the FieldWire (by Hilti) office in downtown San Francisco focused on risk-taking. After a brief introduction from Mayra Soto, Associate at Building Ventures and one of the San Francisco Chapter leaders, Yves Frinault, Founder and CEO of FieldWire gave a keynote. Following the keynote, Tristen Magallanes, Director of Product Incubation with DPR, moderated an open and collaborative panel of Tessa Lau, CEO of Dusty Robotics, Kaitlin Frank, CEO of eMod, and Vivin Hedge, General Partner with Zacua Ventures.