A Generational Shift Into Industry 4.0 – Analyst Call


On the 10/5/2022 Analyst Call titled “Generational Shift into Industry 4.0,” Dan Laboe, Director of Venture Investment with BuiltWorlds, was joined by the father and son duo of Cliff and Daniel Fetner. The three discussed some of the generational differences in the building ecosystem and how it’s impacting tech adoption in the space. Cliff is the Founder and CEO of Soil Connect, and Daniel is a General Partner at Alpaca VC (& Co-Founder of Soil Connect). 

The call began with Laboe providing an overview of investments in the built world, covering topics such as deal count, capital inflows, top investors (by the number of deals), and investments by building category. The conversation then shifted to discuss Cliff and Daniel’s thoughts on technology adoption in the built environment. Daniel argued that “It’s only the bottom of the second inning… maybe the top of the third,” and that only a relatively small amount of capital has been put to work in this space so far ($10B). Cliff proposed the pandemic as a potential catalyzer of the systemic shift toward digitization within the construction industry, specifically, owners trying to discover…