Buildots, a Tel Aviv and London-based startup that is using computer vision to modernize the construction management industry, announced that it has raised $16 million in total funding. This includes a $3 million seed round, and a $13 million Series A round.
The idea behind Buildots is to use hardhat-mounted 360-degree cameras to allow project managers at construction sites to get an overview of the state of a project and whether it remains on schedule.
The company’s software creates a digital twin of the construction site using the architectural plans and schedule as its basis. Then, it uses computer vision to compare what the plans say to the reality that its tools are seeing. With this, Buildots can immediately detect when there’s a power outlet missing in a room or whether there’s a sink that needs to be installed in a kitchen, for example.
However, construction sites obviously post their own problems. There’s often no wi-fi, for example, so contractors generally still have to upload their videos manually to Buildots’ servers. They are also three dimensional, so the team had to develop systems to understand on what floor a video was taken, for example, and for large indoor spaces, GPS won’t work either.
Now, the plan is to scale the company, which currently has 35 employees, and figure out even more ways to use the data that the service collects and make it useful for its users.
