Latest news with #SarahBuchner
NBC News
02-08-2025
- Business
- NBC News
Startup Trunk Tools is using AI to reduce construction errors and waste
Homebuilding has long been one of the slowest industries to modernize, and commercial construction isn't far behind. Its scale is enormous, and yet it remains one of the least digitized industries in the world. That lack of innovation in commercial technology contributes to outdated documentation and errors in tasks that then have to be redone as well as administrative drag. It's a huge drain on time, budgets and materials and can lead to costly delays and unnecessary environmental waste. All told, it contributes to nearly $1 trillion in lost productivity each year, according to an August 2024 report from McKinsey Global Institute. Historically, construction companies spent an average of less than 1% of revenues on IT, less than a third of what is common in automotive and aerospace, according to the report. Sarah Buchner learned all this the hard way. The daughter of a carpenter in Austria, she came to the U.S. to learn construction and worked her way up to foreman, superintendent and eventually contractor. 'At the peak, I was running a $400 million high-rise, 600 guys working for me in the job. And on that specific construction side, I had a fatality, which in construction happens, unfortunately, a lot,' she said. 'But I was, I think, very young, and couldn't fully process what was happening.' So Buchner decided to build a health and safety app, switching careers from construction to construction software and construction tech. A decade later, with the proliferation of AI, she launched Trunk Tools, a generative AI platform trained on real construction workflows. It automates some of the more tedious tasks and also pinpoints project risks and simplifies documents. 'We take all of the unstructured documentation on a construction site, and we use different AI and machine learning tools to restructure it,' Buchner explained, noting that an average high-rise project in New York City, costing about half a billion dollars, would require about 3.5 million pages of documentation. 'Those pages change every single day, because the planning isn't finished by the time you start construction,' said Buchner. So contractors often get conflicting orders and can't search the documents to clarify. For example, take the installation of an emergency exit door. One data set says it needs electricity, but the electrical drawings don't have an outlet there. Discrepancies in the data, Buchner says, not only waste money but contribute to carbon emissions due to work inefficiencies. Trunk Tools' technology can process millions of unstructured documents, from blueprints to drawings to schedules and specs, and then return them in a clearer format that workers can better follow. The startup is partnering with Microsoft to integrate the technology into the company's suite of options. Trunk Tools just announced a $40 million Series B funding round led by global software investor Insight Partners with participation from Redpoint Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, StepStone, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures and Prudence. This investment brings its total funding to $70 million.
CNBC
01-08-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Startup Trunk Tools is using AI to reduce construction errors and waste
Homebuilding has long been one of the slowest industries to modernize, and commercial construction isn't far behind. Its scale is enormous, and yet it remains one of the least digitized industries in the world. That lack of innovation in commercial technology contributes to outdated documentation and errors in tasks that then have to be redone as well as administrative drag. It's a huge drain on time, budgets and materials and can lead to costly delays and unnecessary environmental waste. All told, it contributes to nearly $1 trillion in lost productivity each year, according to an August 2024 report from McKinsey Global Institute. Historically, construction companies spent an average of less than 1% of revenues on IT, less than a third of what is common in automotive and aerospace, according to the report. Sarah Buchner learned all this the hard way. The daughter of a carpenter in Austria, she came to the U.S. to learn construction and worked her way up to foreman, superintendent and eventually contractor. CNBC's Property Play with Diana Olick covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, delivered weekly to your inbox. Subscribe here to get access today. "At the peak, I was running a $400 million high-rise, 600 guys working for me in the job. And on that specific construction side, I had a fatality, which in construction happens, unfortunately, a lot," she said. "But I was, I think, very young, and couldn't fully process what was happening." So Buchner decided to build a health and safety app, switching careers from construction to construction software and construction tech. A decade later, with the proliferation of AI, she launched Trunk Tools, a generative AI platform trained on real construction workflows. It automates some of the more tedious tasks and also pinpoints project risks and simplifies documents. "We take all of the unstructured documentation on a construction site, and we use different AI and machine learning tools to restructure it," Buchner explained, noting that an average high-rise project in New York City, costing about half a billion dollars, would require about 3.5 million pages of documentation. "Those pages change every single day, because the planning isn't finished by the time you start construction," said Buchner. So contractors often get conflicting orders and can't search the documents to clarify. For example, take the installation of an emergency exit door. One data set says it needs electricity, but the electrical drawings don't have an outlet there. Discrepancies in the data, Buchner says, not only waste money but contribute to carbon emissions due to work inefficiencies. Trunk Tools' technology can process millions of unstructured documents, from blueprints to drawings to schedules and specs, and then return them in a clearer format that workers can better follow. The startup is partnering with Microsoft to integrate the technology into the company's suite of options. Trunk Tools just announced a $40 million Series B funding round led by global software investor Insight Partners with participation from Redpoint Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, StepStone, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures and Prudence. This investment brings its total funding to $70 million.
Business Insider
24-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
This startup says it's made ChatGPT for construction sites. Read the pitch deck it used to raise $40 million.
A New York startup that has built an AI agent for handling admin tasks in the construction industry has raised $40 million in funding. Trunk Tools takes unstructured construction industry data — such as documents, drawings, blueprints, and schedules — and turns it into structured datasets to feed into its AI. Construction workers can then ask the AI a question in layperson's language, such as, "Does this door require electricity?" and the AI provides an answer, along with the source material. "So it's a ChatGPT for your job site," Trunk Tools' CEO, Sarah Buchner, told Business Insider. In the last 18 months, Trunk Tools has rolled out AI agents that can autonomously handle entire workflows, such as scheduling and project tracking. Buchner told BI that the startup has built custom large language models because general-purpose AI struggles with construction data. "We trained multiple models completely from scratch from construction drawings, construction objects, room boundaries, and so on," Buchner said. The company mostly sells its software as a subscription service, but some of its newer AI agents are charged per business outcome. Its customers include Suffolk Construction, Gilbane, and DPR Construction. The 60-person company operates in the US and Canada. Buchner started her career as a carpenter with her dad at age 12 in a small village in Austria. She worked her way up in the construction industry to a group leader, then built a construction safety app and completed a Ph.D. in civil engineering and data science. Buchner compared Trunk Tools' placement of its AI specialists into its customers' organizations to manage behavioral change and adoption from the inside to what "Palantir does with forward-deployed engineering." Insight Partners led the startup's $40 million Series B round, which included participation from Redpoint Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, Stepstone, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, and Prudence. It brings Trunk Tools' total funding to $70 million, which includes a $20 million Series A round in 2024. Buchner told BI that the startup plans to allocate about half of its fresh capital to product development and the other half to its go-to-market strategy. Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck Trunk Tools used to raise its $40 million Series B. Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools Trunk Tools
Business Insider
24-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
This startup says it's made ChatGPT for construction sites. Read the pitch deck it used to raise $40 million.
Trunk Tools has closed a $40 million funding round for its construction industry AI agents. The agents can handle admin tasks like scheduling and project tracking. BI got an exclusive look at the 19-page pitch deck the New York startup used to raise its Series B. Trunk Tools takes unstructured construction industry data — such as documents, drawings, blueprints, and schedules — and turns it into structured datasets to feed into its AI. Construction workers can then ask the AI a question in layperson's language, such as, "Does this door require electricity?" and the AI provides an answer, along with the source material. "So it's a ChatGPT for your job site," Trunk Tools' CEO, Sarah Buchner, told Business Insider. In the last 18 months, Trunk Tools has rolled out AI agents that can autonomously handle entire workflows, such as scheduling and project tracking. Buchner told BI that the startup has built custom large language models because general-purpose AI struggles with construction data. "We trained multiple models completely from scratch from construction drawings, construction objects, room boundaries, and so on," Buchner said. The company mostly sells its software as a subscription service, but some of its newer AI agents are charged per business outcome. Its customers include Suffolk Construction, Gilbane, and DPR Construction. The 60-person company operates in the US and Canada. Buchner started her career as a carpenter with her dad at age 12 in a small village in Austria. She worked her way up in the construction industry to a group leader, then built a construction safety app and completed a Ph.D. in civil engineering and data science. Buchner compared Trunk Tools' placement of its AI specialists into its customers' organizations to manage behavioral change and adoption from the inside to what "Palantir does with forward-deployed engineering." Insight Partners led the startup's $40 million Series B round, which included participation from Redpoint Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, Stepstone, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, and Prudence. It brings Trunk Tools' total funding to $70 million, which includes a $20 million Series A round in 2024. Buchner told BI that the startup plans to allocate about half of its fresh capital to product development and the other half to its go-to-market strategy. Trunk Tools pitch deck slides Trunk Tools Series B funding pitch deck slide Trunk Tools Series B funding pitch deck slide Trunk Tools Series B funding pitch deck slide Trunk Tools Series B funding pitch deck slide
