Formwork Labs, an early-stage AEC startup accelerator powered by BuiltWorlds and Brick & Mortar Ventures, recently announced the members of the 2025 cohort. The program, introduced in 2022, aims to bring together entrepreneurs, industry leaders and investors from throughout the built environment to solve significant pain points within the construction industry.
Startups accepted into the three-month accelerator program receive a $75,000 grant from Brick & Mortar Ventures, weekly business development workshops and mentor sessions, and a one year membership to the BuiltWorlds Member Network. The program concludes with the opportunity to pitch at the Formwork Labs Demo Day competition.
As the five newest members of the Formwork Labs community gear up for the three-month-long program, we wanted to take a look back at the three previous cohorts. We caught up with four alumni companies to see what these innovative startups have been up to since their own Demo Days.
Buildpeer
Founded: 2021
Cohort Year: 2022
Located: Mexico
Backstory
Buildpeer is a centralized, collaborative project management platform, with both desktop and mobile capabilities. While the company is headquartered in Mexico, its beginnings trace back to San Francisco. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Mauricio Valdes, had an internship with a construction company in the city. He left with a drive to build a technology that would propel construction in his home region of Nuevo León, Mexico’s seventh-largest state.
Partnering with Ernesto Gonzalez Fernandez, Buildpeer’s co-founder and COO, Valdes focused his drive on solving communication breakdowns on job sites. He surveyed construction companies in the region and found that most used popular messaging and cloud storage apps—Whatsapp, Slack, Dropbox and Google Drive—for communications and documentation. They seemingly had no ability to apply workflows or organize and search through documents efficiently.
“We have this mindset of digitizing the industry,” Valdes said. “It’s not a platform that will help you build a project. It’s a platform that will help you organize the communication of any construction project.”
Buildpeer 1.0 was built in 2021 and launched a year later. Soon after, the founders began looking for an accelerator program. Valdes found Formwork Labs through LinkedIn a week before the program’s deadline and applied.
“The network that we have, with all the people that Formwork Labs helped us connect with, was amazing,” Valdes reflected. “I always say the construction industry is an industry of relationships and if you relate more, you have more channels of success.”
Updates
Following the Formwork Labs Demo Day, Buildpeer raised $1.8 million (USD). The company then built out its staff, focusing on customer service, sales and marketing. Buildpeer now boasts 29 employees.
Buildpeer 2.0 deployed in 2023, and a year later in March the company began raising another seed round, this one led by Brick & Mortar Ventures. The round closed in Q32024 and raised $2.5 million (USD).
Buildpeer recently announced Buildpeer News, an online news outlet focusing on construction in the country.
Development has begun on Buildpeer 3.0 that will add new features based on industry feedback. While Buildpeer has customers all over LATAM, the core target (for now) is Mexico. In 2025, Buildpeer aims to corner 70% of the market in three of the country’s major cities: Monterrey, Mexico City and Guadalajara.
Veristart
Founded: 2022
Cohort Year: 2023
Located: Canada
Backstory
Veristart safeguards construction equipment by storing equipment keys in the cloud and providing virtual authorizations that protect against equipment theft and mishandling. Control access programs were something Craig Hannam, the company’s co-founder and now CEO, had seen work successfully in other industries. It led him to the idea to bring digitized locks to construction, where it’s common for equipment to function via universal keys that are readily available for purchase online—perhaps why equipment is nine times more likely to be stolen than vandalized.
Diving in, Hannam recruited former colleagues Ajay Pande, now CTO, and Lou Lawrence, now equipment safety and security consultant, to join him in co-founding Veristart. The team quickly applied (and were accepted) to Formwork Labs. Within six months, Veristart was pitching at Brick & Mortar Ventures’ Demo Day.
“That first Demo Day taught us how to do solid pitches. Our pitch is very similar, but now we are much further along to making (our lock program) a reality,” Hannam said. “The most important part of that pitch day is the group. These companies might never get another chance to have that great of an audience in one space. To this day, we still see that really tight network of construction VCs at events and it’s not a cold connection.”
Updates
Following the conclusion of Formwork Labs, Veristart spent nearly eight months building out the solution, including hardware, before participating in another Demo Day at Builtworlds’ 2024 Toronto Summit. Veristart has raised both angel capital and nondiluted funding, and is currently launching products.
The company is currently completing a pilot program and intends to launch a seed raise in Q2 2025.
Mango (formerly Mangxo)
Founded: 2022
Cohort Year: 2023
Located: Mexico
Backstory
Mango acts as a credit facilitator in the Mexican construction market, promising smoother financial transactions between subcontractors and suppliers, with the aim of keeping projects on schedule and cost-efficient. Founded by Sergio Angelini, CEO, Luis Morales, COO, and Patricio Naumann, CTO, Mango’s leadership team first heard about Formwork Labs through fellow Monterray-native and Formwork Labs alum, Buildpeer CEO Mauricio Valdes.
“The opportunities that come from being in the program are invaluable,” Angelini explained. “And, if you’re Latin American, (the program) brings ten times the opportunities.”
While there are plenty of client testimonials and success stories posted to the company’s LinkedIn page, Angelini’s favorite testimonial comes from his father. Angelini’s father, a second-generation builder, didn’t initially use the platform when it launched because the suppliers partnered with Mango at the time didn’t offer what he needed. Now, he regularly purchases from multiple suppliers through the platform.
“That’s the most amazing story for me,” Angelini said. “And, obviously, helping businesses grow from both sides of the ball: The ones selling materials that are increasing sales, and the ones building more projects, getting to the next stage of the project faster and in a more profitable way.”
Updates
Since Formwork Labs, Mango has grown from three to a team of thirteen. Along the way, the company has focused on profitability, customer acquisition, and relationship building within Mexico’s construction community. With suppliers located in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterray—three of the country’s 10 most populous cities—the company has plans for expansion in 2025.
Mango is currently raising a $2 million USD seed funding round. This funding will help build out and retain staff, expand market presence, and accelerate the deployment of Mango 2.0, which incorporates builder feedback into new, easy-to-use features.
TerraScape AI
Founded: 2024
Cohort Year: 2024
Located: United States of America
Backstory
Terrascape AI utilizes generative AI and intelligent agents to help construction professionals identify risks, automate tasks, and easily access data. Although Founder and CEO Medo Eldin wasn’t originally from the construction industry, he saw an opportunity to utilize large language models within the industry. He applied to Formwork Labs on the suggestion of an early supporter of the technology, the founder and president of a large construction firm.
“(Formwork Labs) gave me access to a large number of customers,” Eldin noted. “(It) accelerated my understanding of many of the challenges that the industry is facing, and was just incredibly valuable for me to be able to assess where we might be able to use AI to help solve some of the problems.”
Updates
Terrascape AI is currently operating a pilot program with the mentor assigned to the company during its time in the Formwork Labs cohort.
“We’re now working with one of the largest AEC companies in the world as a result of this,” Eldin said. “A relationship established during the (Formwork Labs) program has turned into a significant pilot, which will, I think, ultimately have a catalyzing effect on our company.”
Eldin recently spoke on a panel at the 2025 BuiltWorlds AI/ML Conference in Atlanta, Ga.
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