Disrupting Construction: 10 SMEs join Advanced Construction Accelerator

10 SMEs have been selected to join the first cohort of the Advanced Construction Accelerator.  

The Accelerator was designed to help the construction industry embrace new technology. 

Connected Places Catapult and Startup Discovery School will run the programme and give business and technical support to the SMEs. The cohort will also receive commercial guidance and an opportunity to run live trials and demonstrations from a consortium of industry partners including Ferrovial Construction and Ibstock plc.  

The SMEs which address key sector challenges relating to supply chain management, sustainability and data are as follows:  

• AI Clearing – Deliver fully autonomous construction progress tracking, quality surveying, and near real-time adherence to design identification, generating trustworthy reports and online dashboards covering 100% of a site powered by design, budget, schedule and drone data on infrastructure and energy projects. 

• Concretene – Enhanced concrete that promises to be a game-changer thanks to the transformational addition of 2D material – graphene. Developed by engineers from Nationwide Engineering and scientists from The University of Manchester’s Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC).  

• Concrete4Change – A technology capable of isolating  significant amounts of CO2 in concrete. This technology has the potential to mitigate 2 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of 4% of global CO2 emissions. 

• Hausbots – A patent-pending unique wall-climbing robot can climb any surface and be used for inspection and maintenance tasks such as building and infrastructure inspection and surveying or even painting. 

• Joinery Systems – Future Joinery Systems are rethinking the way that bespoke joinery is procured by enabling designers and architects to configure quality joinery using tools that seamlessly integrate with existing CAD and BIM software and link directly to manufacture; helping designers provide their clients with bespoke solutions, quantified prices, and efficient workflows.  

• Looper – An AI-powered carbon accounting software to accelerate decarbonisation for building and infrastructure projects. Looper’s automated workflow can save clients up to 60% of the time compared with traditional carbon workflow and ensure data consistency among different stakeholders. 

• Noam – Noam generate actionable business intelligence from the various data silos within an organization. Noam consumes data from a variety of formats and creates a structured representation; offering insights in the following ways: forecasting, standstill reduction, planning time reduction, and optimized process and maintenance management. 

• StructurePal – Provide structural engineers with AI-based tools that enable them to reduce the needed concrete in their design, without changing their workflow and without any learning curve. 

• SymTerra – SymTerra is an integrated works communication tool that connects everyone to the project. Every activity. Every asset. Every person. SymTerra facilitates communication by establishing and streamlining the flow of data from site. 

• Veyor Digital – With cloud-based logistics scheduling and planning, Veyor effortlessly connects vast supply chains on a live platform to enable teams to instantly and seamlessly manage daily materials handling and site activity, all with a few flicks of a thumb.  

Alex Weedon, Executive Director SME Development & Academic Engagement, Connected Places Catapult said, “We launched the Advanced Construction Accelerator to accelerate the adoption of technology into construction and to help the industry to overcome traditional barriers to innovation. We look forward to seeing what this diverse cohort will be able to achieve throughout the programme and we are confident this first iteration of the programme will pave the way to success for others to come.”  

Grant Mobbs, Ferrovial Construction (UK&I) Strategy, Development and Preconstruction Director said, “We are delighted to be partnering with Connected Places Catapult and the selected SMEs to explore and implement innovative initiatives to tackle some of the priority challenges within the construction sector. We have selected a range of projects across Streamlined Operations, Carbon Reduction and Digital Future. Innovation is one of our values and we look forward to implementing pioneering materials, technologies and tools across our projects, to create a more sustainable future for the construction industry.” 

Jeremie Rombaut, Managing Director of Ibstock Futures said, “As an up stream player in the construction value chain, our physical footprint and access to markets and industry knowledge, combined with the technology that the starts up bring, demonstrate a well primed positioned to enable the transition towards Modern Methods of Construction and more sustainable means of building.”