7/19/2021
A startup company founded by CEE associate professor and alumnus Mani Golparvar has raised $17.3 million in a Series B funding round. The company, Reconstruct, provides remote quality control and progress monitoring software, enabling more efficient workflows for construction project stakeholders. READ MORE
Written by
A startup company founded by CEE associate professor and alumnus Mani Golparvar has raised $17.3 million in a Series B funding round. The company, Reconstruct, provides remote quality control and progress monitoring software, enabling more efficient workflows for construction project stakeholders.
“It is very exciting to be involved in the transformation of a use-inspired scholarly research, originated in CEE at Illinois, into an AI-driven product that is changing the construction industry," Golparvar said. "Our long history of engineering excellence and our commitment to the entrepreneurial mindset in CEE provided a launching pad to transform a research idea into a working solution that can have a profound impact on addressing the urgent productivity, safety and maintenance problems of the construction industry.”
A graduate of the Research Park’s EnterpriseWorks incubator, Reconstruct was founded in 2016 by several Grainger Engineering faculty, including Golparvar, who currently serves as the company’s chief technology officer.
This funding round was led by Nemetschek Group, a global leader in construction software, along with other leading architecture, engineering and construction companies: EquipmentShare/Romulus Capital, STO Building Group, Thornton Tomasetti, SHoP Architects, Syska Hennessy and Asia Pacific Land, according to a Reconstruct announcement.
Reconstruct says that the investment will enable it to accelerate the delivery of their computer vision and AI-driven solution worldwide and to integrate with leading construction software solutions that are widely used in the construction industry.
In addition to construction companies, asset owners and operators such as Pfizer utilize Reconstruct on their production facilities around the world.
“The state-of-the-art designs and schedules of our facilities are difficult to manage,” said Patrick Watters, Pfizer’s Director of Global Technology & Engineering. “When you are in a race to save lives, we can’t afford to leave anything to chance. That is why we use Reconstruct because it is the only platform that provides visibility that enables us to maintain our highest standards of quality control and enables us to discover any risks of potential delays before they happen to keep us on-time and on-budget.”
Golparvar has been on the CEE at Illinois faculty since December 2012, where his research focuses on computer vision and machine learning for monitoring construction and operation in the built environment.
“I am happy that I have the opportunity to bring back my experience from entrepreneurship into research and education, to sharpen our ability to quickly and continuously formulate high-impact interdisciplinary research problems, and to encourage students to think about innovation and entrepreneurship as a career path,” Golparvar said.