LONDON, April 15 , 2019 – the London-based deeptech startup, Contilio, has been awarded a significant grant by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. The grant is a part of the £170m “Transforming Construction” fund and will drive a ground-breaking R&D project, tackling the main cause of billion-dollar delays and cost overruns for the global construction industry: that is the lack of real-time feedback on construction progress and quality. Through application of cutting-edge technology, the project will equip the construction industry with real-time insights on construction progress, installation quality and risks and help deliver large construction and infrastructure projects on-time, on-budget and with enhanced productivity. Contilio is delighted to collaborate with an outstanding team from Imperial College London on this project, co-led by Professor Jennifer Whyte and Doctor Stefan Leutenegger, renowned experts in the fields of digital innovation in the built environment and computer vision.
Construction is one of the biggest drivers of the UK economy and the global GDP. The UK’s national infrastructure programme alone targets £650 billion projects by 2025. However, unlike manufacturing where the quantity and quality of output is known at any given time, in construction, there is no intelligent control room communicating progress and performance insights to project stakeholders in real-time. Project owners and contractors literally steer multi-million-pound projects “blind”, that is with partial, siloed information 4-8 weeks old.
Zara Riahi, Founder and CEO of Contilio states: “This means delayed decisions, compounding risks and costly overruns for the majority of construction projects, something we are changing for our customers. We are delighted to have been chosen by the Innovate UK’s Transforming Construction challenge to drive this change and make on-track the new normal for every major construction project. This funding is a testament to the size of the productivity opportunity for the UK construction industry and a great endorsement for our approach and the strength of our team and our R&D partner, Imperial College London. Over the next 12 months, the funding will be used to further advance Contilio’s AI-based analytics platform and to deploy our software solution on construction sites, delivering against the targets of the challenge.”
Imperial College London has assembled a unique team of experts and will use the funding to conduct state of the art research on 3D computer vision, Building Information Modelling (BIM) and machine learning techniques, contributing to the advancement of Contilio’s cutting-edge technology and the UK’s research leadership in the built environment.
Contilio would like to thank its customers and partners for contributing to this great success and the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) for their support in helping us make on-track the new norm for every major construction project at every corner of the world.
For further information or press inquiries please reach out to Jack Li (jack@contilio.com).
About Contilio: Contilio (http://www.contilio.com) is a ground-breaking analytics startup at the intersection of construction, deeptech and enterprise SaaS. Our AI-based platform analyses site data in real-time and turns them into intelligent insights on construction progress, performance KPIs and risks. This empowers contractors, project owners and investors to have 360-degree visibility into risks and issues, make timely and accurate decisions and enjoy from billion-dollar productivity, cashflow and compliance benefits. Contilio was founded by an expert team around CEO, Zara Riahi who has experienced this massive problem first-hand managing and investing in global construction projects. Having experienced the significant productivity improvements big data analytics & AI drive for gigantic industries including finance and manufacturing, triggered Contilio’s vision to bring the same to the $12Tn construction industry.
About Imperial College London: Professor Jennifer Whyte is the director of the Centre for Systems Engineering and Innovation of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and leads the Alan Turing program for ‘Data-Driven Engineering design under uncertainty’. Professor Whyte has a stellar track record researching how big data and digitization would transform the design and delivery of major construction projects. Dr. Stefan Leutenegger is a Senior Lecturer of Robotics in the Department of Computing, leads the Smart Robotics Lab and is the co-leads research undertaken by the Dyson Robotics Laboratory with Prof. Andrew Davison.
About Innovate UK (www.innovateuk.ukri.org): Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas. We connect businesses to the partners, customers and investors that can help them turn ideas into commercially successful products, services and business growth. We fund business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation and drive business investment into R&D. Our support is available to businesses across all economic sectors, value chains and UK regions. Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation.