Outside Capital’s Impact on the Construction Supply Chain

In the last decade, we have seen a growth in venture capital funding into construction technology startups. These companies have all different types of business models, with some venture-backed companies directly competing by providing services as tech-enabled contractors. In the last few years, we have seen private equity firms buy and roll up family owned contracting businesses (namely HVAC).

These trends should change the way you think about the construction supply chain as new types of companies are now joining the supply chain or cutting certain players out of the supply chain.

This presentation will highlight some of the new types of construction services businesses coming into the supply chain that have raised outside capital to grow and scale faster than your traditional AEC Business.

Some businesses to highlight will include: AI-enabled services companies, robotics-enabled services companies, software-enabled services companies, private equity backed services businesses, and direct from factory or direct to owner services. We will provide real examples of these businesses and talk about how they impact various parts of the supply chain.

Speakers

Alice Leung

Principal, Brick & Mortar Ventures

Alice started her career in the AEC industry with DPR Construction in the San Francisco Bay Area building UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. She led the Bay Area Skunkworks group and implemented various construction technologies on project sites. In April 2016, Alice relocated to Singapore to help start up the Southeast Asia HQ for DPR Construction as the resident BIM/VDC and construction technology expert and worked on data center projects. She was part of various workgroups led by the Singapore Building and Construction Authority (BCA), was a part-time lecturer for the BCA Academy BIM Management Certification Course, taught BIM courses for RICS and spoke at various conferences in the region. She joined the Digital Built Environment Institute(DBEI) organizing committee whilst in Asia and is now part of the DBEI North America Committee since her relocation back to San Francisco. After realizing the slow pace of digitization in the construction industry, Alice joined the Brick & Mortar Ventures team to work with startups that want to disrupt the way we design, construct and maintain the built world.

Alice holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Brown University where she was on the Formula SAE racecar team and worked in a materials science lab researching lead-free piezoelectrics.

Kaustubh Pandya

Partner and Principal, Brick & Mortar Ventures

Kaustubh Pandya, P.E. brings over eight years of strategy and industry experience in the AEC industry. Prior to Brick & Mortar Ventures, Kaustubh was with McKinsey & Company for over four years advising engineering & construction firms, investors, construction technology providers, and owners. He also contributed to and co-authored research in construction technology at McKinsey. Before joining McKinsey & Co, he worked as a forensic structural engineer assessing catastrophic failures and improving building resilience. Kaustubh holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from U.C. Berkeley, a M.S. in Design Construction Integration from Stanford, and an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management. He is an avid rock climber and enjoys spending time in the great outdoors with his wife Konstantina and two daughters.

2025 SMACNA Annual Convention

Outside Capital’s Impact on the Construction Supply Chain

Speakers