Meet Cohort 10
Register to attend demo day here.
We’ve just started our 10th cohort, which marks a whole new chapter for the Pi Labs programme — with some major updates including the rebrand from accelerator to growth programme. The rebranding is accompanied by an increase in cohort size, as well as the development stage of the participating teams. Cohort 10 was recently introduced in this TechRound article, but here we will go into a little more depth.
We’re already on week three (of 16) of the programme with 10 incredibly exciting teams. An exciting 13-and-a-half weeks are ahead of us, with many critical workshops addressing various parts of the startups’ businesses. We also have a weekly Speaker Series where Pi Labs alumni speak with the cohort about what has happened in their worlds since being on the programme–both their successes and shortcomings. The below video introduces some of our alumni, and the experiences they had during their respective programmes.
The process of building each cohort starts long before launch day. In fact, the process for Cohort 10 started in September of last year, when we began opening applications, as well as actively scouting teams from across the globe. Over four months, we managed to receive more than 1,000 applications, hold over 200 meetings and coordinate more than 40 detailed interviews before finally taking 11 teams to our investment committee (IC) and approving 10. It’s worth noting that this high approval rate at IC is a direct result of the thorough selection process at the earlier stages, so only the best and most relevant teams made it to IC.
Overview of the teams
This year we not only have the biggest, most grown-up cohort, but also our most diverse — both in terms of gender and geography, as well as in terms of their solutions and technologies. Industries range from virtual reality, to the future of work, to construction, and beyond.
So what about the teams — are they really that good? Well, you can have a look at the descriptions below and judge for yourself. If you are interested in engaging with any of them, please feel free to contact me at boyan@pilabs.co.uk
SymTerra
Industry — Construction
Location — London, UK
Founded year — 2020
Problem — Contractors and project managers are required to report their attendance, progress and any safety concerns on site. Unfortunately, significant amounts of data remain unreported. Effective reporting is cited as one of the contributing factors for construction projects’ high failure rates and costs.
Solution — SymTerra is a SaaS-based communication platform that streamlines the flow of data across site teams and it is positioned as the “slack for construction”. The product is targeted at large-scale construction projects valued at £5m+ and above, enabling the flow of communication between site owners, project managers, contractors and subcontractors.
Route Konnect
Industry — Rail & Retail
Location — Cardiff, UK
Founded year — 2018
Problem — Customers are not understanding how people are moving and using their spaces. This is resulting in lost revenue from not maximising their resources and assets. Furthermore in the rail sector, there are missed opportunities to reduce costs caused by delays, inefficiencies, and safety concerns.
Solution — Route Konnect is a real-time video processing to help organisations understand the movement of people and vehicles across large multi-camera locations whilst fully preserving anonymity.
Moonhub
Industry — Virtual Reality
Location — London, UK
Founded year — 2016
Problem — Organisations spend $359 billion globally on learning and development. However much of this training is provided through the use of a computer screen, mouse, keyboard or documents. Many studies have shown that retention rates from these L&D programs can be as low as 5–10%. Therefore, many employers fail to achieve a positive ROI on their L&D spend.
Solution — Moonhub is a virtual reality training platform for the workplace, designed to scale, provide high-level data and employee analytics.
Modulize
Industry — ConTech
Location — Oslo, Norway
Founded year — 2020
Problem — 40% of all waste and emissions globally come from the construction industry. Modular construction can tackle this but most modular manufacturers struggle with low efficiency due to slow and inaccurate cost estimation, bidding, project planning and element design.
Solution — Modulize is a single collaborative software solution for offsite construction, optimising design, planning and procurement.
LiveCosts
Industry — Construction
Location — Dublin, Ireland
Founded year — 2018
Problem — LiveCosts is a smart construction software to automate cost management for builders and contractors, replacing labour-intensive spreadsheets.
Solution — ERP solution for the SME segment of the market, which is less complex and significantly cheaper than competitors.
Laiout
Industry — CRE
Location — Oslo, Norway
Founded year — 2021
Problem — The way office floor plans are designed today is completely broken leading to gross inefficiencies in asset optimisation for landlords, poor experience for tenants due to archaic tools used by the industry.
Solution — Laiout automates the creation of early-stage architectural floor plans, allowing our clients to save weeks of time and provide better and more data-driven floor planning options within a matter of clicks.
GREENPASS
Industry — Sustainability, Development
Location — Vienna, Austria
Founded year — 2018
Problem — Real estate developers and cities are under pressure to meet carbon-neutral deadlines set by various governments and city councils around the world. However, there are big challenges around measuring the climate impact, or assessing the optimal path for climate impact improvement.
Solution — GREENPASS enables planners, developers, and investors to compare the climate resilience of different project designs to optimise the sustainability and profitability of real estate development. We recently profiled Greenpass in an article about re-greening our cities.
FIRMUS
Industry — Pre-Construction
Location — Tel Aviv, Israel
Founded year — 2019
Problem — Often, contractors are required to bid and later build projects when design is still in progress. Meaning that designs are not yet complete, not consistent and include many constructability errors. Such design issues lead to wrong pricing estimations, rework, delays on site, claims, poor decision making and wrong planning. Thus, implementing any design into construction has a big risk for all project’s stakeholders.
Solution — FIRMUS is revolutionizing design risk management in construction by analysing construction documents using advanced AI technologies. FIRMUS uncovers and manages mitigation of undetectable otherwise design issues and offers a pioneering solution to an unattended industry problem. Discovering those issues early has a significant impact on the bidding and building processes, saving time and money.
CONXAI
Industry — Construction
Location — Munich, Germany
Founded year — 2020
Problem — Current artificial intelligence solutions are very limited in terms of applicability, scalability, and affordability in the construction industry. Furthermore, measuring data on logistics and workflows on construction sites requires multiple solutions.
Solution — CONXAI is the first no-code AI platform for the architecture, engineering and construction industries. Off the back of our due diligence on Conxai in late-2021, we shared our thoughts on no-code, as well as construction tech funding.
