The Venture Codex

Participated · Series A · May 2024

Aeromine Technologies develops a patented, motionless rooftop wind-harvesting platform intended for commercial and industrial flat roofs. Its edge-mounted units have no external moving parts or blades and capture wind flowing up and over buildings, using aerodynamics similar to race-car airfoils to amplify airflow. Systems typically consist of 20–40 units installed on the roof edge facing the predominant wind and can enable buildings to produce up to 100% of their on-site energy needs. The technology can operate independently or integrate with existing solar arrays, providing grid redundancy and mitigating reliance on volatile grid supply. Aeromine will use the recently closed approximately $9 million Series A to scale production and pursue global market development. Commercial interest is strong: the company received nearly 11,000 inquiries from more than 6,500 companies and has a pipeline of 400 qualified projects across sectors and regions. Aeromine Technologies develops a scalable bladeless wind energy system that installs on the edge of building rooftops and integrates with existing building electrical and rooftop solar systems. The motionless, silent, vibration-free units are designed for installations typically 50 kW or larger and require less rooftop space than other distributed-energy options. Aeromine says its system is up to 50 percent more productive than other renewable energy alternatives. The company's patented technology was validated through joint research with Sandia National Laboratories and Texas Tech University. Aeromine targets large, flat-roof buildings including warehouses, big-box retailers, data centers, offices, and apartment buildings, and leverages financial structures, installation resources, and incentives previously established by the solar industry. AEC Angels has made an endorsement investment to support the company’s deployment in the AEC sector.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2022

ProPlanner (formerly Ipsum) is a web-based, collaborative construction scheduling and planning platform led by CEO Franco Giaquinto. The platform empowers field teams to plan and keep projects on time by connecting project schedules with weekly lookaheads and work plans. It integrates with other platforms such as Procore to keep relevant documents like RFIs—and soon Submittals—in sync with the schedule. ProPlanner is used by general contractors on hundreds of construction projects across more than 10 countries and customers include Haskell, Granger Construction, Journey Construction, Novo Construction and Orion Building Corporation. The company raised $2.7m in funding and intends to use the proceeds to grow its customer base, expand its go-to-market team, and enhance the platform’s capabilities.

Participated · Series B · Jul 2021

Reconstruct is a Menlo Park–based SaaS company that offers a Visual Command Center (VCC) to create and manage visual reality digital twins across the lifecycle of capital assets. The VCC is used for construction, renovation, as-builts and asset management, employing image recognition and photogrammetry point clouds. The company reports thousands of projects used every day across six continents and highlights industrial and infrastructure customer ROI from its measurability, mapping and monitoring capabilities. Customers cite rapid reality-mapped deliverables (for example, a 600,000 sq ft federal project rendered in two days versus months by traditional laser scanning) and sub-inch measurement accuracy. Reconstruct plans to use proceeds from its recent strategic up round to accelerate deployment of AI and machine-learning capabilities and support global expansion. The company emphasizes AI-driven insights and analytics to identify issues earlier and improve capital-asset management. Reconstruct offers an AI- and computer-vision-driven SaaS platform (Visual Command Center™) that combines reality capture, design, and schedule to enable remote quality control and progress tracking. Its multi-patented automated detection and field-mapping capabilities deliver sub-inch measurable visibility for projects of varying scale. The platform is used by customers ranging from 7-Eleven and McDonald’s to billion-dollar industrial operations in renewable energy and pharmaceuticals, and Pfizer uses it across global production facilities. Reconstruct has grown roughly 300% over the past two years. The company plans integrations with industry software such as Bluebeam and connections to Nemetschek brands to accelerate global expansion and customer acquisition. Founded in 2016, Reconstruct maintains offices in Silicon Valley and the Midwest with team members around the world. Reconstruct is a Menlo Park, California and Champaign, Illinois–based provider of a SaaS platform for construction and real estate. The company offers an AI and digital-twin software platform with indoor and outdoor views that let project stakeholders track and resolve issues in a virtual environment before they impact cost and schedule. Its “visual command center” enables project executives to proactively and precisely manage construction progress, including detecting current, past, and future performance issues. The platform’s 3D timelines enable real-time coordination among general contractors, subcontractors, owners, and lenders. Customers include Walbridge, Clayco, Taisei, and Kajima. Reconstruct raised $7.7M in a Series A and intends to use the funds to expand operations and open offices in Texas, Chicago, New York City, and Tokyo. The company was founded by Dr. Mani Golparvar and Dr. Derek Hoiem and is led by CEO Zak MacRunnels.

Participated · Series A · Apr 2019

OnScale provides an on-demand, scalable engineering simulation software platform that combines multiphysics solver technology with cloud high-performance computing to handle very large engineering simulation problems. Its CAE tools were architected for highly parallel mainframe-class computing and serve industries including MEMS, semiconductor, 5G, biomedicine, infrastructure safety, and autonomous vehicles. The company was spun out of Thornton Tomasetti in 2017 and is led by CEO Ian Campbell. OnScale’s solutions address simulation needs across semiconductor and MEMS, 5G mobile, next-generation biomedical, infrastructure safety, and autonomous vehicle markets. The company intends to use new funding to drive global expansion, respond to increasing demand, and accelerate development of its CAE solutions for complex, real-world engineering applications. No operating metrics were disclosed in the article. OnScale offers a SaaS platform that combines advanced computer-aided engineering (CAE) multi-physics solvers with a scalable cloud high-performance computing (HPC) environment to accelerate engineering innovation. The company was co-founded by CEO Ian Campbell, VP of Product Development Dr. Robbie Banks, and VP of Engineering Dr. Gerry Harvey as a spin-off from Thornton Tomasetti. OnScale raised $3M in strategic seed funding to scale operations and launch its platform. The funds are intended to support scaling operations and the platform launch, with commercial availability planned for Q2 2018. Initial target markets include 5G (RF filters and switches), IoT/IIoT (microphone arrays, motion/gesture sensors, biometric and fingerprint sensors, industrial sensors), BioMed (advanced therapies, targeted treatment planning, consumer ultrasound), and driverless car sensing technologies (3D ultrasound for object classification and occupant monitoring).