Buildcheck has raised $12 million in Series A funding to expand its AI-powered construction design review platform, bringing the company’s total funding to $18 million only nine months after its $5.9 million seed round.
The financing was led by Telescope Partners, with participation from WND Ventures, the corporate venture arm of DPR Construction, and existing investors Uncork Capital, Salt VC and Xfund.
Buildcheck uses proprietary computer vision models to analyze construction blueprints and automatically identify errors, omissions and coordination conflicts before drawings reach the field.
The company said design errors cost the approximately $13 trillion construction industry more than $200 billion annually, with many of those problems most economical to correct during the design stage.
Buildcheck’s computer vision technology can read blueprints and perform hundreds of automated checks across multiple construction disciplines.
Since last year, the company has grown by more than 4x to over 110 paying customers, which Buildcheck said are achieving 10x to 35x return on investment across projects including data centers, hospitals, multifamily properties, commercial developments and tenant improvements.
Customers include DPR Construction, EllisDon, Power Construction Company, EMJ Construction and IMC Construction.
Buildcheck said its technology has already analyzed more than 150,000 construction drawing sheets. The company is using the Series A to expand among general contractors, developers and design firms while evolving from an automated checking tool into a broader design review and collaboration platform.
The expansion includes four product extensions.
Custom Checks enables construction companies to upload their own quality assurance and quality control manuals and internal standards. Buildcheck then converts those materials into custom AI review agents that evaluate each drawing set and revision according to the company’s own requirements.
Diffs is designed to identify meaningful changes between drawing revisions through both visual comparisons and plain-language descriptions while filtering out inconsequential changes that can make traditional overlay tools difficult to use.
The company is also introducing Code Reviews and Value Engineering capabilities, which are designed to identify regulatory issues capable of delaying construction and highlight opportunities to modify designs that may otherwise be impractical or uneconomical to build.
Those modules were developed through multiyear collaboration with industry experts and are available in beta to customers in the U.S. and Canada.
Buildcheck was founded at Stanford University by Alexander Michalatos, Andrei Molchynsky and Alex Gureiev. The company’s broader goal is to apply AI earlier in the construction lifecycle, allowing design problems to be identified and resolved before they result in more expensive field changes.
KEY QUOTES:
“Last year, we proved AI can review drawings like an experienced contractor — over 150,000 sheets analyzed faster, more consistently, and across every discipline at once,” said Alexander Michalatos, CEO and co-founder of Buildcheck. “Automated design reviews are now becoming a market standard. We’re giving every project what I wished for when I was managing my own hospital design-builds: a tireless co-worker who understands everything about the project, with a seamless platform to bring everyone in one place to fix things.”
Alexander Michalatos, CEO and Co-Founder of Buildcheck
“Drawing review has been an accepted pain for decades, costing the industry billions,” said Chris Gaertner, Principal at Telescope Partners. “Buildcheck has changed that, and it couldn’t have been more obvious through our conversations with customers — the quality of the logos, their love for the product, and the ROI on their business was unlike anything we’d seen in this market. It was clear this is fundamentally changing preconstruction in ways many thought weren’t possible.”
Chris Gaertner, Principal at Telescope Partners
“When design information is incomplete or lacks accuracy, the impacts to a project can be substantial,” said Zach Murphy, Design-to-Build Leader at DPR Construction. “Our pilot with Buildcheck is one way we’re increasing design certainty for our teams. By rapidly analyzing design documents and assessing their readiness, Buildcheck helps our reviewers spend more time on critical issues and solutions.”
Zach Murphy, Design-to-Build Leader at DPR Construction
“There is no reason design errors should exist,” continued Michalatos. “Our technology is approaching a point where drawings can achieve perfection before construction starts. But at Buildcheck we will not stop at finding mistakes, because construction is more than mitigating risk. Construction represents the best of human ambition: the aspiration to create something bigger than yourself that will exist long after you go. Our mission is to build the most-loved software in construction so that our customers can keep building.”
Alexander Michalatos, CEO and Co-Founder of Buildcheck
