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Investors in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) space agree that world markets right now are looking surprisingly bullish for 2017, and fertile for increased innovation seeding and cultivation.
"People are more optimistic about the future, at least in the construction sector," says Curtis Rodgers, VP of Brick & Mortar Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture capital and private equity firm led by managing partner Darren Bechtel. So far, it has backed up 15 AEC start-ups. "We are getting a lot of inbounds, so I would say the mood is absolutely more positive now than it was a year ago."
San Francisco and Boston are leading the construction tech charge in the U.S., and development pressure tied to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing are pushing Asian innovation. "I have not seen a more optimistic outlook from people in this business in my lifetime," says Paul Doherty, president and CEO of Memphis, TN-based The Digit Group (TDG) and a globe-trotting "smart cities" evangelist. "Asia is very, very strong right now and will continue to be," he adds, pointing to contracts . "And for the first time ever, Europe is fertile ground for our work. We will be opening an office in Dublin by May of this year to accommodate the workload."
"There are two big trends in the market now, one from the buyer side, the other from the entrepreneur side," says Rodgers, adding that Brick & Mortar is currently raising outside capital in anticipation of deploying even more in 2017 seed rounds. "On the buyer side, we see more construction firms, developers, and facility managers creating their own dedicated innovation teams and getting very serious about execution. And on the entrepreneur side, more mature teams are starting to form. We've gone beyond the 'friends and family' stage to a next-generation stage that is putting earlier customer feedback to good use. So now, instead of 'minimally viable products,' we see much more advanced solutions being released sooner to solve real problems now."
