The same way we now take photos of receipts to pay for that ‘important lunch’ start-up in construction engineering Qflow enables the teams running construction sites to do the same for building materials. Sounds like a good idea, right? However, it is more innovative and less trivial than it sounds. To date, no company has done this – as far as TechCrunch is aware – making Qflow quite unique. It also has a de-carbonization angle: If you can track building materials more efficiently, you can track carbon inputs and outputs. This is especially important as the construction sector is one of the largest CO2 emitters 11 percent of global carbon emissions.
The company has now closed a $9.1m (£7.2m) Series A round of financing led by climate technology VC Systemiq Capital, to drive growth in the US and Australia. Ascension Ventures, Bridge Investment Group, Gravel Rd, Greensoil Proptech Ventures, Grosvenor, John Emrey (CEO of Alder Properties), MMC and Suffolk Tech are also participating.
Qflow says its platform enables construction teams to collect real-time material and waste data, enabling those teams to make more informed decisions about cost, carbon and quality, leading to greater transparency and efficiency
Qflow previously raised £2.4 million in two seed rounds, with investment from PiLabs, MMC, Goldacre, Entrepreneur First (EF London 10) and angel investors.
Founded in 2018 by Brittany Harris and Jade Cohen, both with experience in the construction industry. The pair met volunteering for World meritan SGGs community.
During an interview, Brittany Harris, co-founder and CEO of Qflow, told me, “Construction is one of the most carbon-intensive industries in the world. And it’s a bit of a nightmare going low carbon because there are so many moving parts. Qflow is ultimately the simplest way to capture all the information you need to understand the carbon impact of construction and then use that to decarbonise. It’s all about reducing the right way, but in the long run it’s about unlocking the economy through urban mining.”
A urban mine is the stock of rare metals in a society’s waste electrical and electronic equipment.
Qflow says customers using the platform now include Berkeley Group, Canary Wharf Group, Grosvenor, Landsec, Morgan Sindall, Multiplex, Workplace Futures and others.
Matthew Goldstein, General Partner at Systemiq Capital, said in a statement: “Qflow uniquely aligns the goals of construction CFOs and sustainability managers, accelerating clients’ ambitions to decarbonise the economy while giving them time to and save money and reduce regulatory risk.”
