KURO – A new start-up is breathing life into the construction industry
At the Adlershof Founder’s Lab, the team is developing software designed to make calculations much easier
A start-up based at Adlershof Technology Park is working to bring about a revolution in the construction industry. Utilising artificial intelligence, the audacious founders are looking to fundamentally change the way large-scale construction projects estimate costs and breathe new life into the realisation of construction projects.
Lea Leibold and Jonas Minkler both studied business administration and computer science in Munich. They got to know each other and their skills during a study programme for entrepreneurial talent. Leibold: “It changed our lives. Everybody there was so inspired, everybody wanted to start a business. And so did we.” Before they did, they gained some initial experience working at Capmo and alcemy, two start-ups from the construction tech scene.
The Adlershof Founder’s Lab, or AFL, supported them on their way from the idea to the business. A one-year start-up grant from WISTA Management GmbH and the Senate Department for Economic Affairs, Energy and Public Enterprises (SenWiEnBe) gave them some “air to breathe” as they were starting up and the WISTA co-working space, too, offered many possibilities. Now, the two are underway to “reinvent” the estimating business. “By using artificial intelligence (AI), we reduce the processing time for an estimation by 90%,” explains Jonas Minkler, who is responsible for product development.
Estimators in the construction industry nowadays are faced with immense amounts of project information. To estimate costs, they must sift through an average of 250 documents with several 1,000 pages. What is to be built, and what are the risks? What subcontractors need to be hired for what? How were similar projects calculated and at what price? Since only a fraction of projects that are estimated come to fruition (five to ten times more), there is an average of five full-time estimators for every company of 70 employees.
To make these estimations significantly easier to do, KURO uses large language models (LLMS), the AI technology behind ChatGPT. “For this, we are developing software tailored to the construction industry. Existing solutions are outdated and the possibilities they offer are limited,” says Minkler. In the long term, the aim is to develop entirely new enterprise resource planning for the construction industry where the core is made up of AI and automation. This will later be expanded to encompass the entire back office. Initially, cost estimating is the perfect starting point because everything else—accounting, scheduling, controlling—starts from there.
The founder duo has already spoken with over 100 experts and developed a prototype. In March–April, they want to set up a limited liability company (GmbH) and go on to look for first investors this year.
Since the construction industry is the largest industrial sector in Germany, many leading companies are already interested in the project. The start-up has already attracted some initial customers for individual processes. Their secret: “We are not building a product for four years and hoping everybody goes and buys it,” says Minkler. “We take small sections from estimations, translate them into software, and create a direct added value.”
Information is already being processed and edited more quickly in the workflow. The next step is to connect their client’s internal systems and enrich information from project descriptions with internal sources. This enables users to calculate more projects with less effort, increase quality, and sustainably expand their business.
In sales, too, a modular approach will be applied later on. Companies can buy individual programmes or the entire package. “We do not believe in forcing things on people,” says Leibold.
The name “KURO” is from a manga comic book. A man of a thousand plans. The two devoted founders viewed this as an ideal match for their vision.
Kathrin Reisinger for Adlershof Journal