KwantAI Raises $3.86 million Seed Round with investment from Fairstead, Launch, Pearl Fund, 7BC Venture Capital, Forefront Ventures, Martinson ventures, and Serra Ventures

New York AI SaaS startup brings AI and IoT technology adding efficiency and safety to the global construction industry with Jobsite Operating System

January 13, 2022 – New York – Today, the KwantAI announced a $3.86 million seed round with investment from Fairstead, Launch, Pearl Fund, 7BC Venture Capital, Forefront Ventures, Martinson ventures, and Serra Ventures. Funds will be allocated to facilitate customer expansion, scaling the platform and hiring across its engineering, sales, marketing and product staff. KwantAI saves lives and adds over 10% operational efficiencies saving billions of dollars for the construction industry. This has been proven to work in large deployments such as the new airports in New York, EV factories in Detroit and Tennessee with over 10,000 construction workers using the technology on a daily basis. KwantAI’s technology has been proven to prevent fatalities, reducing injuries and adding millions of dollars in operating efficiencies in the large global construction industry.

Kwant’s platform was recently deployed at Park 79, a hotel-to-affordable housing conversion in New York City being developed by Fairstead, a purpose-driven, vertically integrated real estate company committed to sustainable development and the creation and preservation of high-quality housing. Beginning in November of 2020, with over 200 workers registered, worker compliance and certifications including OSHA and SST cards were centralized in Kwant’s single data base to ensure compliance. More than 10,000+ hours of worker data were collected in 39 different working zones, with locations and activity shown all throughout the eight-story building, allowing Fairstead to track progress and productivity. Kwant also helped Fairstead manage and deploy COVID-19 protocols, including keeping track of workers’ temperature scans and contract tracing to prevent outbreaks.

“Fairstead doesn’t just invest in cutting-edge new technologies to create more sustainable, efficient, and resilient developments, we use our expansive portfolio as a test lab,” said Tyler McIntyre, Managing Partner, Design and Construction, at Fairstead. “With on-hand capital and a diverse set of properties, we are able to invest in and deploy the latest tech solutions to move our industry forward.”

The Kwant solution is simple and elegant, deploying a smart badge wearable and equipment trackers on project sites for construction, mining, manufacturing and critical infrastructure where tradespeople, materials and equipment are monitored from the moment they enter the job site. Kwant uses deep learning for accurate x, y, and z positioning of workers and assets. Then Kwant groups unstructured data using artificial intelligence algorithms. Kwant detects patterns in thousands of project data sets and then provides recommendations on durations, crew size, and safety risks.

“As a safety and productivity platform, when you look at the other options in the market, Kwant is best in class for our large-scale projects. Our value realized has been through avoiding job sites shutdowns due to variants of the safety incidents and the pandemic, gaining a more precise understanding of exact time and duration of exposures, evacuation, and rescue as well as for tracking high-value assets and equipment utilization.

 

The area this system excels at is faster response times, accuracy, dashboard customization and their badges are “Made in America” which improves the certainty that deliveries are made on time.” – John Jurewicz, Head of Innovation, Walbridge Construction (ENR Top 48 Contractors)

 

“Kwant combines field staff workforce timesheet tracking with fully integrated 5D-BIM, enabling us to analyze daily productivity and WIP across all our projects with dashboards and drill-down insights, along with scheduled reports. They also worked with us to integrate the timesheet service with our accounting ERP to streamline reporting for payroll. Overall this is helping us understand project performance and proactively adjust our workforce plan, and updating timesheet and WIP through the model saves us 8-10 per week by not having to manually measure and calculate material quantities. Looking forward to the opportunity to analyze and predict our production rates for future projects is a game-changer.” – Andy Leek, Vice President – Technology & Innovation, Paric Construction (ENR Top 150 Contractor)

Kwant AI uses proprietary low-powered sensors with long battery life to collect real-time data and predictive analytics is actively detecting activities of high risk and sending daily alerts. Their network penetrates through building materials and can cover up to 15 miles allowing bi-directional communication to send safety alerts back to the site. Thousands of employees are currently sending data about safety and productivity through Kwant AI’s platform. With customers and partners, including some of the largest builders and owners in the world like Delta, DPR, Walbridge, Moretenson, Gilbane, Paric, McCarthy, Alberici, Comcast and Wesco across airports, electric vehicle factories, roads, data centres and commercial buildings with a portfolio value of over $60bn.

Currently, KwantAI is involved in several high-profile projects that are preventing construction delays, and more importantly keeping workers safe on the job. Onsite, KwantAI proprietary predictive analytics is actively detecting activities of high risk and sending daily alerts. Team leaders get the information they need to take proactive actions, which is driving the project to stay on-schedule and on budget. At another build – this one for a valued energy client – KwantAI prevented a potentially fatal accident. During the nightshift a worker had a serious accident. Using his SOS button, he alerted the safety manager for an immediate response. KwantAI is also increasing productivity. Malbro Construction saw an increase of 11% greater productivity from proactive alerts and data-driven insights.

About KwantAI
Kwant AI is a New York-based construction technology firm making construction and industrial job sites as predictable as shop floors, using IoT, real-time passive data, and predictive analytics through IoT worker smart badges connecting to Kwant’s artificial intelligence-powered software operating system.

About Fairstead
Fairstead is a purpose-driven vertically integrated real estate developer specializing in creating sustainable, high-quality housing. The firm’s national footprint includes more than $6 billion in assets and identified pipeline. With offices in New York, Maryland, and South Carolina, Fairstead’s team manages 90+ communities across the country and runs its comprehensive real estate platform, which includes acquisitions and development, venture capital investments in prop tech, design and construction, energy and sustainability, property management, marketing, and leasing. The firm also administers one of the industry’s most proactive community impact programs to provide on-site support services to residents. For more information, visit www.fairstead.com.