Sistema VC, the venture arm of the Russian conglomerate Sistema, led a $2.5 million pre-A round for TraceAir, a US-Russian startup which develops construction automation solutions, the fund announced last week.
Other participants in the round include US companies Engeo, a provider of geotechnical and environmental services, and Independent Construction Co., which owns “one of the largest dirt moving fleets in the US,” as well as several unnamed business angels.
Founded in 2015 by Dmitry Korolev and headquartered in Silicon Valley and Moscow, TraceAir has developed a cloud platform for building contractors to control quality and expenses. The software’s visual interface has been designed in such a way that “your 50-year old foreman can begin using in 10 minutes,” the startup claims.
As stated by Brian McCosker, president of Independent Construction Co., TraceAir “gives the opportunity to access in just one click tools which were previously available to only specially trained professionals.”
The company also provides drones data to verify site work. Designed for land development managers on large-scale residential projects, this approach consists in merging blueprints and CAD models with the data collected drones.
TraceAir previoulsy participated in the 500Startups acceleration program and attracted a total of $625,000 as part of its seed round.
According to Dmitry Filatov, VP of Technology at Sistema VC, TraceAir’s solution has been already appreciated and actively used by major developers in Russia and the US.
“The construction market, which is a conservative and major industry, offers a huge potential for growth of applied tech solutions. Companies which are not using such technology will not be able to compete tomorrow,” he commented.
Among Sistema VC’s latest deals was, earlier this spring, a $1.9 million round for Russian-founded Gosu.ai.
