Doxel, a technology start-up providing computer-vision-powered predictive analytics for construction, closed $40 million in Series B financing – bringing the company’s total funding to $56.5 million. The investment, led by global private equity/venture capital firm, Insight Partners, with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Amplo, will allow Doxel to scale its artificial intelligence platform and rapidly accelerate recruiting across its engineering, sales, marketing and product teams.
Co-founder and CEO Saurabh Ladha said the capital was raised at “over a 4x multiple” from its $12 million Series A in early 2020. He described the Series B as an “opportunistic raise.”
“We raised because we could, at a phenomenal valuation. The full series A is still in the bank. We didn’t touch it even,” Ladha told TechCrunch. “Our growth and bookings traction has actually been so high that we’ve been cash flow neutral in that period of time.”
What Doxel does
In much the same way that car drivers have come to rely on satellite technology to avoid traffic, Doxel’s customers have come to rely on its AI-powered Project Controls platform to uncover costly delays and cost overruns on construction projects, often saving millions of dollars. Beyond cost overruns, the loss of revenue associated with capital assets not being available for use per plan is exponentially disastrous.
Click on this image to see a larger viewDoxel
Doxel has now tracked tens of billions of dollars in capital expenditures for a diverse group of Fortune 500 companies, including Kaiser Permanente and Shell Oil.
“With hundreds of thousands of variables changing every day and an opportunity to leverage rapidly exploding datasets on modern construction projects, project teams are seeking a next-generation solution that can do the monitoring for them, so they can focus on solving problems rather than on finding them,” explained Ladha. “Doxel’s computer-vision-powered predictive analytics enables building owners and general contractors to identify critical risk factors that threaten to derail their project before they even know these risks exist.”
Royal Dutch Shell's experience
Royal Dutch Shell, commonly known as Shell, a multinational oil and gas company has seen first-hand the impact of the company’s technology.
”With Doxel’s AI Powered Project Controls platform, our team was able to expand the span of control from spot-checks to a near 100% coverage across the entire scope of the installation. We were able to identify critical project risks and confidently make informed decisions preventing significant delays and cost overruns,” said Dmitry Gurevich, IT manager Pennsylvania Chemicals Project, Shell Polymers.
Key to the success of Doxel’s platform is the ability to:
- Establish an objective ground truth of a construction project, so teams can make decisions based on facts, not guesswork
- Contextualize disparate project data and bridge knowledge silos, bringing the entire team into collaboration, not debate
- Generate timely predictive insights that can prevent a potential issue from putting a project days behind schedule or millions of dollars over budget
According to a 2021 construction outlook from Autodesk, nonresidential spending across the board is forecast to hit $411 billion in 2021. As the global construction industry continues its bounce-back from the impact of the worldwide pandemic, Doxel is poised to scale up its solutions to meet growing demand.
As a youth, Mr. Ladha witnessed his family experience perilous circumstances resulting from significant, costly delays on a major construction project. While ultimately completed successfully, that experience inspires Mr. Ladha and his co-founder and CTO Robin Singh to scale their AI powered Project Controls Platform and innovative solutions for the construction industry.
