Cascade raises $3.5M to help construction firms find and win projects
Quick Answer
Cascade has raised $3.5 million to develop an AI-driven platform that helps construction firms identify and secure projects.
Quick Take
The startup aims to streamline the project discovery process, making it easier for firms to find opportunities across various government and private portals. Founders Hannia Zia and Joana Ferreira emphasize the platform's predictive capabilities based on historical tender data.
Key Points
- Cascade raised $3.5 million from Andreessen Horowitz Speedrun and others.
- The platform predicts project opportunities using AI and historical tender data.
- Founders experienced firsthand the challenges construction firms face in securing work.
- Cascade plans to use funds for market entry, industry events, and hiring engineers.
- The startup aims to create a comprehensive industry map for better project predictions.
DeepSignal Analysis
What happened
Cascade has secured $3.5 million in seed funding to develop an AI-based platform aimed at assisting construction firms in identifying and winning projects. The startup's founders, Hannia Zia and Joana Ferreira, highlight the challenges construction businesses face in accessing project opportunities across various portals.
Key evidence
- Cascade raised $3.5 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz Speedrun, Ada Ventures, and Snowball VC.
- The platform uses historical tender data to predict which developers are likely to win upcoming projects, helping firms target their efforts effectively.
- The founders noted that the current project discovery process is cumbersome, requiring firms to navigate multiple government and private portals.
Why it matters
The construction industry often struggles with project visibility, which can hinder growth and efficiency. Cascade's platform aims to streamline this process, potentially increasing the success rate of firms in securing contracts. By leveraging AI, the startup seeks to provide actionable insights that could transform how construction firms approach project acquisition.
What to watch
📖 Reader Mode
~3 min readCascade, a startup building a platform to help architecture, engineering, and construction firms find and win projects, has raised a $3.5 million seed round from Andreessen Horowitz Speedrun, Ada Ventures, and Snowball VC.
Launched in 2025, Cascade is a result of its founders, Hannia Zia and Joana Ferreira, witnessing first-hand the difficulty construction businesses face with predictably securing work.
“My mother worked in a company that sold materials to construction companies, and my uncle built mansions in the Middle East. They’re incredible at their craft but just don’t have access to the right tools to get more work,” Ferreira told TechCrunch. And Zia recalled the time her father tried starting a construction business back in her native Pakistan: “He just couldn’t get enough projects to sustain himself.”
Zia describes the current process of finding construction projects as a “constant treasure hunt,” with firms having to log into each U.S. state, city, district, county, and federal agency’s portals. “So if you’re really good at building suspension bridges, you have to find all of those opportunities across these disparate portals.”
Cascade aims to help architecture, construction and engineering firms on this front by tracking ongoing and upcoming projects, and then using prior tender data to predict which developers are likely to win the deals.
Here’s how the platform works: A company signs up to the platform, and then Cascade uses AI tools to determine which projects they have the best chance of winning. It also predicts what projects are coming up, using different signals and data points across U.S. states, local districts, private contracts, and federal agencies. For example, if a state announces a $100 million affordable housing grant, Cascade will monitor which developers won the grant the last time it was announced.
“We connect that data, and we tell our customers: ‘Most likely one of these five developers will win this newly announced grant, so go start talking to them to win projects,’” Ferreira explained.
The duo applied to a16z’s Speedrun last September. They said the pressure to do well on demo day and being around the “brilliance” of other founders helped the company sign contracts with firms that have built the JFK and La Guardia airports, Four Seasons hotels, and some data centers. “Speedrun gave us visibility and a stamp of approval to close big deals,” Zia said.
The startup will use the fresh cash to go to market, host industry events and hire more engineers.
Other startups in this area include GovWin IQ and ConstructConnect, but Ferreira argues Cascade is a bit more AI-native than these platforms.
“Every time a customer wins a bid, they give feedback, so the system keeps getting smarter. Over time, we’ll have a complete map of the industry that our AI can traverse to predict the best projects and leads for each customer,” she said.
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Dominic-Madori Davis is a senior venture capital and startup reporter at TechCrunch. She is based in New York City.
You can contact or verify outreach from Dominic by emailing dominic.davis@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at +1 646 831-7565 on Signal.
— Originally published at techcrunch.com
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