There is a crisis unfolding in the background of American life. You can see it in the skyrocketing housing prices, the scaffolding that never comes down, the headlines about labor shortages, steel prices, and climate deadlines. We are surrounded by the built environment, and yet we rarely question why it’s so hard and so expensive to build anything at all.
The truth is:
our tools to shape the world haven’t kept up with our ambitions for it.
Construction is the largest major market that has yet to be transformed by modern technology. It represents 13% of global GDP and employs over 273 million people worldwide, yet it has largely remained stuck in an era before software, before data, before intelligent automation. Productivity in the sector has grown at a third the rate of the global average over the last 20 years. In the U.S., it takes longer to build a home today than it did in 1971.
This stagnation is a major reason why:
We are trying to meet 21st-century challenges like climate change, housing inequality, workforce transformation, and infrastructure decay with 20th-century tools.
Something extraordinary is happening. The industry has reached a tipping point. We are finally beginning to see the long overdue digital transformation of construction.
Software is entering the jobsite. Robotics are entering the trades. AI is replacing manual estimation. Embedded fintech is speeding up cash flow. Platforms are emerging to link once-siloed phases of planning, building, and financing.
By 2031, an estimated 41% of the U.S. construction workforce will retire, creating a massive gap in skilled labor. Meanwhile, approximately 300,000 additional workers are needed each year to replace those leaving the workforce. Faced with fewer workers and rising demand, contractors are turning to automation, robotics, and digital tools out of necessity.
Project owners and developers are increasingly driving construction tech adoption by demanding greater visibility, speed, and accountability. A 2024 Dodge Construction Network study found that large owners are leading the industry in adopting digital workflows and real-time data tools to manage project risk and improve outcomes. This shift is making tech adoption less optional and more of a prerequisite for winning and delivering modern construction projects.
The pandemic forced the industry to digitize seemingly overnight. Remote site monitoring, virtual inspections, and cloud-based project management became essential and have since become the new normal. This cultural shift happened in less than two years, and it’s still accelerating.
The same industry that once treated technology with suspicion is now asking when it can be installed, integrated, and scaled. Founders and investors who act now will define the category and generate both alpha and impact.
This is where Hometeam Ventures comes in. We are a venture capital firm purpose-built for early stage founders reimagining how we design, construct, and finance the physical world.
Hometeam exists to fund three of the greatest leverage points in our economy:
We’re proud to align financial ambition with meaningful impact. For our LPs, this is an opportunity to pursue both profit and purpose.
Construction tech is often misunderstood as niche. It is anything but.
Construction represents nearly 13% of global GDP and is made up of diverse subcategories—automation, supply chain, permitting, workforce, fintech, climate tech, and more. Each one holds multi billion-dollar outcomes.
What makes construction tech so compelling is not just its size—but its structure. Rather than a single vertical, construction is an ecosystem of interdependent, high-friction markets
From 2012 to 2022, investment into construction tech grew more than 16-fold, as early successes like Procore, PlanGrid, and Levelset proved venture-scale outcomes were possible. But even today, construction tech lags far behind adjacent categories like fintech, healthtech, and supply chain in dollars invested despite the quality of founders and startups.
That asymmetry between market timing and capital attention is our opportunity.
The essential nature of construction—driven by the persistent demand for housing and core infrastructure makes it one of the most resilient sectors of the economy. During periods of growth, construction activity tends to surge, fueling employment and investment. But even in downturns, the industry plays a critical role in economic recovery. Public spending on infrastructure has long been a favored government tool to stimulate growth during recessions, helping the sector rebound faster than many others. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored this dynamic: construction was quickly deemed essential, and in most states, crews were back on job sites within weeks of initial lockdowns. Facing new constraints, the industry adopted technology at an unprecedented pace, from remote collaboration tools to digital inspections, demonstrating both adaptability and momentum toward modernization.
Many of society’s biggest problems are physical, and the biggest returns will come from solving them. The infrastructure of the future we inhabit can be affordable, sustainable, and equitable.
