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BuiltWorlds 2024 Construction Technology Conference last week featured nine energetic AEC startups presenting their pitches to a captivated audience and esteemed judges. All defended their solutions valiantly, but there could only be one winner. In the end, Whistle Rewards took home the honor, impressing the judges with its behavioral science-backed solution.
Aside from from Whistle Rewards, this year's ConTech Demo Day featured technology solutions Verfico, Pixly, Enlaye, Legman, Roger, Optimized Building Intelligence (OBI), Inherent l3c, and Cohesion. The lineup of solutions primarily focused on alleviating pain points with AI and making the most of the copious amount of data that construction projects generate. As these startups show, tackling workflow automation and using AI to analyze pictures and text are big emerging trends in the AEC space.
Whistle offers instant rewards anywhere in the world to employees and subcontractors. Instead of giving employees gift cards as recognition for a job well done, Whistle gives out physical and virtual client-branded cards. When an employee does something worth recognition, employers can reward right away with money deposited directly on the card and Whistle virtual wallet. Whistle is tax compliant and lower cost than gift cards.
Rewarding workers instantly reinforces positive behavior on a project and results typically start manifesting within 14 days, according to the company. Instead of giving out gift cards that can easily be lost and wasted, Whistle "marries the emotion of 'I’d like to buy you lunch' with the flexibility of cash," said CEO Drew Carter. No money is wasted on the platform as employers can see where the money they deposit is going and if it never gets used, the employer gets it back.
As part of the pitch, Carter shared the company's experience working with Corey Construction. Corey wanted to drive daily reporting with Whistle across nine projects, which resulted in 100% engagement and increased compliance by 50% at a cost of $5 a day. Whistle currently is experiencing 60% quarter over quarter growth and will begin raising Series A funding in 12 months.
As a patent-pending incentive and rewards company, Whistle Rewards was the only solution of its kind presenting at this Demo Day.
Other startups on hand included Verfico, a wage theft prevention solution, which acts like insurance for the uninsurable strategic risk of wage theft. Verfico is led by law enforcement veterans, a background that CEO and Founder Matt DeSarno says puts them in a prime position to tackle the estimated $40 billion wage theft problem in the United States.
Inherent l3c, another presenter, manufactures high-performance, all-electric smart homes in a Chicago factory and then delivers the homes to neighborhoods where the company has acquired vacant land. Inherent's goal, said CEO and Founder Tim Swanson, is investing in people first, through both equitable hiring practices and the company's push to establish first-time homeownership.
Legman, Enlaye, OBI, Pixly and Cohesion are all startups that employ AI technology to some degree in their solution.
Dan Shaw, CEO and Co-Founder of Legman.io, shared how, "Legman is building an AI engine that automates the workflows between the key stakeholders." Enlaye positioned itself as an "AI-native risk lifecycle management" solution. An important component of both Legman and Enlaye is the ability to parse construction documents for specific language and derive and deliver meaning from documents to users. Additionally, both Legman and Enlaye are focusing on the bid management/leveling area as their go-to-market strategy in this competitive landscape.
Pixly is dedicated to improving jobsite documentation. Recognizing that 30% of construction projects have disputes, collecting and storing photos and videos is essential for defense in litigation. Pixly is building AI to automatically analyze photos. Pixly CEO and Founder Lee Mills described the company's market approach as "like a trojan horse," using its current offerings to get in, but adding more features as they grow.
Cohesion is focused on smart buildings as the basis for leveraging AI and developing an AI-assisted building management tool. OBI is in the process of building application layer AI to accomplish its goal of digitizing the AEC industry.
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