TraceAir, a provider of site intelligence software for builders and land developers, recently announced a $25 million Series B funding round, helping the company further its mission of achieving construction acceleration.

The company offers builders and developers a visual and collaborative management platform that empowers businesses with data-driven insights to lower costs, reduce delay and error risks, and improve efficiency.

Founded in 2015 by Maria Khokhlova, Dmitry Korolev, Alexander, Solovyev, and Nikita Ushakovhave, TraceAir focused on the residential construction industry, identifying the site work and land development phase prior to vertical construction as an area untapped by technology-oriented solutions.

“Everything that goes before the vertical start, this is the phase which has the most unexpected, unpredictable components, making the business very hard,” Khokhlova tells Builder. “At the same time, it is very much essential and has to be more predictable. We [aim] to bring the concept of radical transparency to the whole production and project team, as well as to the overall division management for home builders. We bring transparency to the level of day-to-day construction of site work.”

Through the use of drones, TraceAir helps measure, verify, and quantify progress of construction during the site work stage on a weekly basis, helping reduce budget and timeline uncertainty for developers, contractors, and builders. TraceAir partners with licensed drone pilots to survey sites and transfers data on its web-based platform, providing digital imaging and requiring no additional applications or onboarding.

“[We] bring a very clear understanding of where mismatches are [in development], where they can happen, where they are not happening, [and] where progress is being made,” Khokhlova says. “We deliver that through visual management. It is natural for [builders] because everyone is used to printed plans, maps, [and] drawings. We provide an interactive platform that aligns everyone in the form of interactive maps with the actual picture of how the project looks in comparison to how it should look.”

Khokhlova says a key differentiator and advantage of TraceAir is it is truly a turnkey solution, not requiring builder customers to take huge risks by adopting and implementing in-house drone programs or teaching employees to learn entirely new software programs. TraceAir helps onboard employees and the web-based output produced by the drone imaging can be shared to an unlimited number of employees, ensuring all relevant parties can access the same data.

“The product begins to deliver value even with the first user. Unlike other ERP systems or things that can only start to work if 100% of employees use it, we crafted our product so that it starts to deliver value even if one person from the company uses it,” Khokhlova says. “[Builders] also appreciate that they don’t need special training or [a] high level of tech savviness to comprehend [TraceAir]. It’s very easy. [Being] turnkey and being very to easy to use are the two pillars that allow any new technology to really start being adopted in the industry.”

TraceAir has grown to serve many of the top thirty home builders in more than 40 states and Canada. The latest capital raised, led by investment from PeakSpan Capital and Flashpoint Venture Capital, will support the development and market roll-out of new products to boost land development and home building workflows with predictive analytics, according to TraceAir. The company’s expanded offerings will encompass the entire lifecycle of land development and home building projects, from land acquisition through the vertical construction stage.

“We are in the state where we are transitioning from being a single product company to [provide] different products that would serve the wider project lifecycle. We would expand beyond just the site work stage to land acquisition and to later in the project where the vertical construction starts,” Khokhlova says. “Our ultimate vision is to become a true operating system for residential home builders and land developers where there is an objective reality that is being captured on a regular basis and data [is] aggregated that brings in a lot of data points and transparency for the management to [help] make decisions.”

Khokhlova says the funding may also be used to bring additional sensor capabilities online, including LIDAR sensors (light detection and ranging) that can better help builders and developers evaluate challenges related to vegetation in the land acquisition and development phase. The company will also explore the capability to deliver site scans to customers on a more frequent basis, potentially daily, at a reasonable cost.

Trace Air aims to improve its penetration among top builders, expanding its usage across home building divisions and across a larger number of projects within operating divisions.

“We are very dedicated to the mission [of construction acceleration]. It is something that keeps people up [at night],” Khokhlova says. “At some point, we really want to be impacting how the industry evolves and how decisions are made. The prism of technology actually changes the framework of how decisions are made.”

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