Construction Tech Startup Mach9 Secures $34 Million to Grow AI Software

Civil engineering software startup Mach9 has secured $34 million in a Series A funding round after changing its focus from hardware to artificial intelligence. First Round Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners co-led the financing, with additional support from Prudence and Quiet Capital.

The Pivot To Software

Co-founded by Alex Baikovitz in 2021, the company initially set out to build cheaper and faster surveying hardware. Baikovitz and his team soon realized that physical equipment was not the main bottleneck for civil engineering firms. Instead, the biggest challenge was turning massive amounts of data from laser scanners and image capture systems into usable surveys. The company dropped "Robotics" from its name and began developing AI-powered computer-aided design software.

Market Impact

Mach9 has gained nearly 100 private beta customers who have used the system across more than 2,500 projects. Traditional manual workflows using legacy software from companies like Autodesk and Bentley Systems can take up to a week per mile. Mach9 claims its AI-driven tool automates the heavy lifting, making the process ten times faster while cutting costs. The system builds custom in-house AI models to achieve centimeter-level accuracy, generating a draft plan that human professionals can review and refine.

Future Plans

Baikovitz stated that the new capital will be divided among product improvements, hiring industry experts, and scaling the entire organization to meet market demand. The startup also benefited from its early hardware days, which provided direct customer feedback that steered the team toward solving software workflow problems. Other startups are also targeting the infrastructure pipeline, including CivilGrid, which recently raised $26 million, and Blueprints AI.

Context

Computer-aided design tools are a critical part of civil engineering and construction planning, helping professionals map out roads, utilities, and major infrastructure projects. Traditional design software often requires tedious manual tracing of physical features like curbs and pavement lines from raw laser scan data. By using artificial intelligence to automate these initial drafts, tech startups are trying to speed up the long planning phases that often delay public works and private construction.