Trunk Tools is also tackling scheduling and other construction activities with its 25 different AI agents. Sarah Buchner, the founder of the company, who developed it into a construction platform, is not the typical technology executive, but rather a Stanford-educated former carpenter who began working in construction as a teenager in her native Austria. Buchner’s knowledge of what construction professionals need and how to fit AI enhancements into their workflows has given Trunk Tools a leg up in the race to make the construction industry smarter and more connected.

“It’s a lot of people’s vision and dream to be more than just the point solution,” Buchner says. “I feel like we are on a very good path. We’ve expanded rapidly thanks to the technological advancements in agentic architecture and agentic AI, and they’re now at a place where we’re a platform.

“It’s really exciting,” she adds. “I’m very proud of the team.”

Funding Round

Photo courtesy of Trunk Tools

Last year, Trunk Tools saw use by roughly half of the top 50 contractors as ranked by ENR, Buchner reports, and secured a $20-million series A round of funding led by Redpoint Ventures, an investment that allowed the startup to triple its headcount and work on expanding its platform, all with a focus on being the brain that interconnects previously separate construction activities.

“Our [scheduling] agent will automatically connect the work breakdown schedule with everything that is connected from the documentation, connect open RFIs with blueprints, with the specifications, and then, by itself, look if there are discrepancies … and actually tell you, ‘you’re not going to be able to put in concrete next week,’” she says.

Erica Brescia, managing director at Redpoint Ventures, says Trunk Tool’s knowledge of construction was key to its investment.

“We have been looking at AI for construction broadly for the better part of at least two years,” Brescia says. “When you have a market like this, that is so big, but there’s so many step changes that need to happen in technology, you need to find the right team with the right combination of real industry knowledge and subject matter expertise and the tech.

“In this case,” Brescia continues, Trunk Tools showed it had “the AI chops to actually build something that works from a technical perspective but also fits into the workflows and the way that GCs and eventually subs and others get work done.”

Buchner and Trunk Tools have gained a reputation with contractors for making AI work for them.

“Sarah and her entire team have been a really great partner with us, helping us deliver value to our operations teams,” says Heidi DeBenedetti, chief operating officer at Gilbane Building Co., which partnered with Trunk Tools on its text AI agent, uses its document tracking agent, and has supported the firm through venture capital.

“She and her team have really been a standout from a collaboration perspective, really understanding the pain points, the trials and tribulations that our teams go through,” DeBenedetti adds. “I couldn’t be happier.”