Klutch AI Raises $8M to Solve Data Waste in Construction

“The future of construction... is AI that works within their existing habits”

When construction projects go over budget or miss deadlines, the losses can stack up fast: $80,000 in added labor for every week a project runs late, according to some industry estimates. These delays often stem from mundane but critical problems like permit bottlenecks and vendor miscommunications.

The Seattle-based startup Klutch AI is looking to make handling these issues easier. It emerged from stealth this week with an $8 million seed round led by Bain Capital Ventures and Bling Capital, with participation from Brick & Mortar Ventures, Original Capital, Anthology Fund, and angel investors from Autodesk and BuildZoom. Klutch builds AI agents that embed into the everyday workflows of construction teams, via text messages, WhatsApp, and email, to automate tasks like zoning reviews, jobsite documentation, vendor analysis, and warranty support.

Founded by Xu Rui and Tanin Na Nakorn, two former Stripe product leads with roots in machine learning and analytics. “It’s basically like having a built-in data science team,” Rui told GeekWire about their product. She brings a personal connection to the problem: Rui grew up around construction crews, and later ran a real estate business where she saw firsthand how much of the field still relied on messages and photos for mission-critical coordination.

Each AI agent at Klutch has a name and a function. Archie handles permit corrections and zoning analysis. Bob collects jobsite data (photos, punch list items, safety issues) at scale, using natural language and image parsing from everyday messages. Petra scores vendors and levels bids for procurement decisions. Hailey automates warranty ticketing and issue resolution for homeowners. All are designed to operate natively in tools that construction teams already use.

Strategically, Klutch enters a market with both legacy players, like Procure, which recently acquired Seattle-based Unearth Technologies, and a wave of emerging AI-powered construction startups. Klutch’s strength may lie in its team’s dual fluency in machine learning and real-world construction workflows, which enables its agents to function with minimal training or disruption.

Building for the Field

Construction is among the least digitized sectors in the economy, trailing only agriculture, according to McKinsey data. While office teams have gradually adopted CRM and ERP systems, the field remains fragmented and analog. The habits that slow data collection, such as SMS updates, informal photos, phone calls, are precisely what Klutch is optimizing for. Rather than forcing teams to change, its agents listen in and act on the information already being exchanged.

In that sense, Klutch’s insight is behavioral. “The future of construction isn’t forcing field teams to adopt complex software: it’s AI that works within their existing habits,” Rui said in a company blog post announcing the funding round. With that mindset, Klutch hopes to transform noisy, unstructured communication into an intelligence engine: one that predicts delays, optimizes vendor relationships, and flags compliance risks before they derail timelines.

Klutch also benefits from timing. Construction firms are facing intensified pressure from labor shortages, inflation, and regulatory complexity, all while investors are increasingly scrutinizing how companies in every sector apply AI to unlock efficiency.

Integrations and Expanded Agent Capabilities

With its $8 million seed round secured, Klutch plans to deepen its integrations and expand agent capabilities. There is clear opportunity in scaling to more geographies and moving upmarket toward larger general contractors. Longer-term, the company’s roadmap includes building predictive analytics on top of its “knowledge vault”,a centralized dataset composed of the jobsite information its agents are already collecting.

For now, Klutch is not trying to replace Procore or Autodesk Construction Cloud. It is trying to fill in the blind spots those systems leave behind.

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Picture of Mukundan Sivaraj
Mukundan Sivaraj
Mukundan is a writer and editor covering the AI startup ecosystem at AIM Media House. Reach out to him at mukundan.sivaraj@analyticsindiamag.com.
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