Drawer AI Comes Out of Stealth Mode With $5M in Seed Funding
Firm provides AI-powered electrical estimating system for construction
By Philip Russo October 8, 2024 9:00 am
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Drawer AI, a generative artificial intelligence-powered estimating system for electrical contractors, announced Tuesday that it has closed a $5 million seed round.
Brick & Mortar Ventures led the round with Base10 Partners participating in Drawer AI’s first institutional round coming out of a three-year period in stealth mode. The Austin-based company is launching with six electrical contractors that are already using the product, which the startup calls the first of its kind in the industry.
Founded by CEO Den Lavrik, a former construction estimator and serial founder, and Nick Latsis, a co-founder and CEO of an electrical building information modeling services company, Drawer AI uses AI automation to streamline the electrical estimating process. The process includes machine learning to extract data from two-dimensional floor plans, making estimating faster and more accurate, according to Lavrik.
“Generative estimating is a new term,” Lavrik said. “Imagine you’re doing a cross-country trip, and Google Maps gives you a route as a picture, but doesn’t give you the rest of the information. You really need to price it to tell you how much to budget and how long it’s going to take, but you don’t have any of that information.”
PDF drawings also provide limited information, he said. “The rest of the information is where and how long and what materials should be used, which are hidden in the diagrams, tables, charts and specs,” Lavrik explained. “Our AI platform automatically extracts all of these different types of information, consolidates them and gives the ability to estimate this down to the cost that you’re looking for.”
Electrical systems, in particular, do not have a visualization route, he added. “It only has Point A and Point B. It’s very diagrammatic and schematic. So, for the electrical industry specifically, we’re generating conduits and pathways on how this construction is going to be going. Our system gives you a bill of materials that doesn’t even exist on drawings. It’s called spots and dots on the PDF drawings. We’re converting that into actual material.”
Drawer AI took awhile to come out of stealth mode because tech-heavy startups are the most challenging to launch, said Lavrik. Brick & Mortar Ventures helped the startup to launch the 2.0 version that is a scalable enterprise-level platform for clients.
“We’re excited to support Drawer AI as they transform how electrical estimates are done,” Kaustubh Pandya, partner at Brick & Mortar Ventures, said. “Den and Nick have a lot of experience in the industry and are using AI in a smart way to tackle the challenges of electrical estimating, which is a crucial but often overlooked part of construction. Drawer is helping contractors make more accurate and efficient estimates now, but their bigger goal is to speed up design and coordination by using AI to create solutions in 2D and 3D.”
Drawer AI will use the seed round funding for sales, product expansion, and to scale its teams.
“If only one thing is true of construction these days, it’s that you don’t get enough time, so making the most of the time you have is crucial,” said Isaac Phillips, senior estimator and instructor at Starr Electric, one of the six contractors already using Drawer AI. “Drawer AI is helping to do just that and more by simplifying and automating the takeoff process, allowing us to either get more done in less time, do more at once, or focus on the often-overlooked aspects of projects, instilling confidence in our overall estimate that we can convey to our clients.”
Philip Russo can be reached at prusso@commercialobserver.com.
