Dutch startup Airsquire that uses AI to automate construction verification gets a six-figure capital injection from henQ

Delays, reworks and disputes are not new phenomena in the construction landscape. Airsquire offers an intelligent as-built survey platform to automate construction verifications. With the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), errors in 3D construction projects can now be detected faster with 100% coverage, which increases productivity and reduces construction costs. With a six-figure capital injection from Dutch venture capitalist henQ, Airsquire continues to grow and optimise its software.

For decades, construction verification has been a manual and time-consuming process that is subjected to human errors. The current approach has an approximate coverage of 5% to 10% of the as-built environment, often resulting in undetected discrepancies. Discovering these discrepancies at a later stage becomes a more costly affair in terms of time and resources.

Using Artificial Intelligence, Airsquire’s innovative software automates the verification process by comparing 3D models and 3D scans of the physical asset to identify the inconsistencies for the Architecture, Construction and Engineering industry. In comparison to manual verification, Airsquire’s software accelerates the process by 95%, increases coverage to 100%, and enhances productivity while reducing costs. Identifying errors in earlier stages makes it easier for more immediate remediation on-site or for modellers to modify their 3D designs to ensure the delivery of accurate digital twins.

Untapped Market

Co-founders, Kyle Tan and You Yue are two technologists, who were born and raised in middle-class families in Asia. Growing up, they experienced the rising costs of living spaces in booming cities. This led them to discover the inefficiencies of labour usage and the lack of accurate information available in the real estate development sector.

In addition, they realised that current construction methodologies can be a contributing factor that limits cities from maintaining a high quality of life for its citizens. Their passion to solve this problem has led them to develop innovative software that automates construction verification and boost overall efficiency.

Right at the start of their journey, the entrepreneurs were selected from a pool of 150 international startups to participate in the Rockstart Artificial Intelligence Acceleration program. Tan and Yue made the choice to venture to the Netherlands to set the foundations and further develop their business. Here, they gained access to Europe’s mature digital construction market and saw opportunity in the Dutch environment as it offers a collaborative and open business-culture between corporates and startups.

A success: In Q1 of 2019, Airsquire received an investment of about half a million euro’s from venture capitalist henQ to optimise the software in collaboration with their customers and to continue expansion efforts in the Netherlands, UK and Singapore.

henQ Investment

“Right from the start, we have been impressed by the manner in which the Airsquire team operates. During our interactions, the team has shown to possess the capacity to learn quickly, be very professional, and has the guts to travel to Europe from Asia holding the passion to innovate in the construction industry. Airsquire provides a solution that suits and enhances the present way of working through the use of their technology. Shown to easily integrate with existing construction workflows, we believe that Airsquire can become very successful”, says Mick Mackaay, principal at henQ.

henQ Capital Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in enterprise technologies of the future with the aim to transform and disrupt entire industries. Their involvement revolves around actively contributing towards the growth of these companies by leveraging upon their wealth of experience, networks and deploying specialists to assist companies’ to achieve their goals. An instance of such, henQ recently sold off Mendix, the leader in low-code cloud-based enterprise application development, to Siemens for $730M.

— Press Release

Stay tuned to Silicon Canals for more updates in the tech startup world.

https://siliconcanals.com/news/this-spanish-deeptech-scaleup-aims-to-offer-super-fast-wireless-internet-to-everyone-in-the-world/