Bricks And Bytes

"Pre-construction has become less efficient than construction itself."
That is the claim Dustin Devan made on this week's Bricks, Bucks & Bytes after returning from Advancing Pre-Con. Martin, Patric Hellermann and Dustin also dug into the proposed California wealth tax, Bentley's Q1 earnings, and why VCs keep funding the 51st AI takeoff company.
Tune in to find out about:
✅ Why 80% of project cost is locked in before design is even 30% done
✅ How the California wealth tax proposal would actually value private companies
✅ Patric's case for indexing into "directionally right" early-stage bets
✅ Why takeoff is a feature, not a company
Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.
#aec #construction #constructiontech #bricksandbytes #bricksbucksandbytes #ai #vc
Our Sponsors:
BreadCrumb- 50,000+ projects globally. All running safer, faster, with Breadcrumb. - breadcrumb.co
Aphex is the multiplayer planning platform where construction teams plan together, stay aligned, and deliver projects faster – check out aphex.co
Archdesk -  “The #1 Construction Management Software for Growing Companies - Manage your projects from Tender to Handover” check archdesk.com
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:35 Introduction and Overview of Topics
02:15 US Construction Spending Trends
09:52 California Wealth Tax Proposal
26:29 Advancing Pre-Construction Insights
34:38 Building Cost Infrastructure and Pricing Engines
40:30 The Role of Design in Construction Projects
45:39 The Importance of Feasibility in Design
50:46 The Impact of AI on Construction Estimation
53:25 Navigating the Takeoff Tool Landscape
57:02 Innovations in Construction Robotics

A 350-person Canadian contractor just did what most of the industry would call insane. They put their entire business inside the same software platform that powers the CIA. They've killed their paper time cards, their dispatch system, their safety software — and now they're killing their ERP.
This week, Owen unpacks the Cavanagh playbook with their head of digital strategy and asks the harder question: is this the future of construction software, or just an expensive bet on the wrong vendor? Plus: Procore just spent $11M acquiring an AI company in January. Are we watching the start of a platform war that ends with one operating system per contractor?
Then: the 2026 recovery story just died. US inflation hit 3.8%. Construction input prices rose at a 12.6% annualised rate. Every fixed-price bid in the market is a bet on Middle East de-escalation. And data centres aren't saving construction — they're hiding how weak the rest of the market really is.
Key resources
Cavanagh Construction and Palantir partnership case study
Procore Technologies acquires Datagrid for agentic AI capabilities
US April CPI release
Construction input price data, Q1 2026
Hill County, Texas data centre moratorium
Gallup poll on data centre vs nuclear reactor opposition
IEA report on AI data centre power demand growth
US construction spending and nonresidential contraction data

"Companies are bought, not sold."That single line from Yves Frinault reframed the entire conversation on our first-ever Exited Founder Acquisition Roundtable.We sat down with four construction tech founders who collectively sold their companies for hundreds of millions:✅ Yves Frinault (Fieldwire → Hilti) ✅ Dustin DeVan (BuildingConnected → Autodesk, $275M cash + $40M stock) ✅ Mo Akbari Hochberg (HoloBuilder → FARO, ~$36M) ✅ Zach Scheel (Rhumbix → Autodesk, fresh off the deal)Tune in to find out:✅ Why Hilti told Fieldwire "we'll never acquire you" four years before acquiring them ✅ The one negotiation tactic Dustin says every founder should use against corp dev teams ✅ Why an acquisition is a "one-way door" once you walk in, and how to know you're ready ✅ The QSBS detail that decides how much of the exit you actually keepFull episode on Spotify and YouTube now.#aec #construction #constructiontech #bricksandbytes #bricksbytes #bricksbucksandbytes #ai #vct Our Sponsors:BreadCrumb- 50,000+ projects globally. All running safer, faster, with Breadcrumb. - breadcrumb.coAphex is the multiplayer planning platform where construction teams plan together, stay aligned, and deliver projects faster – check out aphex.coArchdesk - “The #1 Construction Management Software for Growing Companies - Manage your projects from Tender to Handover” check archdesk.comChapters00:00 Intro00:46 Introduction to the Acquisition Round Table03:25 Founders' Experiences and Lessons Learned 06:31 Understanding the Role Post-Acquisition 09:40 The Importance of Timing in Acquisitions 09:56 Sponsors 12:57 Fundamentals for Being an Attractive Acquisition Target 31:06 The Exit Journey: Building Value Before Acquisition 33:14 Business Fundamentals: Attracting Strategic Acquirers 36:04 Diligence and Documentation: Preparing for Acquisition 38:56 Revenue and Customer Love: Key Acquisition Drivers 41:13 Understanding ARR: Acquisition Thresholds and Market Dynamics 48:53 Negotiation Strategies: Preparing for the Table 54:46 Lessons from Exits: Growth as a Founder 01:00:45 Defining Success Beyond Numbers 01:02:42 Mindfulness in Leadership During Transitions 01:04:22 The Importance of a Strong Executive Team 01:05:20 The Shift in Perspective Post-Acquisition 01:06:11 Reflections on Founding and Structuring Companies 01:08:37 Creating Value Over Tax Strategy 01:11:21 The Reality of Startup Success Rates 01:11:54 Choosing the Right Company to Join 01:14:48 The Value of Collaboration and Shared Experiences 📩 Subscribe to the Bricks & Bytes Newsletter: https://bricks-bytes.beehiiv.com/🌐 Visit our website: http://bricks-bytes.com/📲 Follow us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bricks-bytes/ Twitter: https://x.com/bricksbytespod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bricksbytes/Enjoying the insights? Hit that Subscribe button to stay ahead in construction tech, AI, and the future of how we build.

EXCLUSIVE: ProcurePro just closed an $11M round and we got the founder on the mic first.
"Control your risks, control your margins."
That's the line Alastair Blenkin, CEO of ProcurePro, kept coming back to on the latest Bricks & Bytes — and it's the bet behind their fresh raise.
Procurement is the most underinvested workflow in construction tech. By the time you're on site, you're just managing the risk you already locked in at buyout. ProcurePro has spent five years building the platform to fix that — and now has $130B+ of construction spend and one of the largest pricing data sets in the world flowing through it.
Tune in to find out about:
✅ Why procurement, not site management, is the real commercial lever on a project
✅ How ProcurePro went from a COVID pivot to Series B in five years
✅ What investors actually wanted to see between Series A and B
✅ AI bid leveling, live copilots, and flipping the model on subcontractor pricing
Watch now on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube.
#aec #construction #constructiontech #bricksandbytes #bricksbytes #ai #vc

The UK's official construction forecast for 2026 was just slashed from plus 1.7 per cent growth to a 2.5 per cent decline. Same week, Caterpillar reported 63 billion dollars worth of equipment already on order, up 79 per cent in twelve months.
In this week's Executive Weekly Briefing, Owen walks through what the macro really says about your business, what the latest results from Caterpillar, Trimble, Bentley and Procore actually mean once you strip the jargon out, and the question every contractor needs to answer this week: where are you sitting on the line between the half of the industry that is shrinking and the half that is booming?
Plus five fast takes from this week on Bricks and Bytes, including why banks are adopting AI faster than construction, what Nemetschek's 2.4 billion dollar HCSS deal really signals, and Palantir's quiet push into the construction industry.
And for Construction Safety Week, the three numbers every executive needs to hear, the news that Turner Construction has just made its AI safety tool free to the entire industry, and a tease of the Bricks and Bytes Safety Tech Report dropping shortly.
Episodes referenced this week
Yves Padrines, CEO Nemetschek + Usman Shuja, CEO Bluebeam: the HCSS acquisition
Chase Gilbert, CEO + Chris DeVito, Built Technologies: the AI documentation bottleneck
Mallory Brodie, CEO Bridgit: the workforce benchmark report
Brett Adams + Dan Julien, Forgesight: Palantir Foundry in construction (Coming soon)
Key resources
CPA Spring 2026 Forecast
RICS UK Construction Monitor, Q1 2026
Q1 2026 earnings releases: Caterpillar, Trimble, Bentley, Procore
Turner Construction SafeT Coach announcement
BLS 2024 construction fatality data