TechCrunch asked 16 leading people who actively invest in construction robotics and work at firms spanning early to growth-stage to share what’s exciting them most and where they see opportunity in the sector.

CEMEX Ventures, CEMEX’s open innovation platform and Corporate Venture Capital unit, launches “Construction Startup Competition 2018” which objective is to find Tech startups that want to change and disrupt the construction industry.The finalists will pitch their startup to the jury and a pitch will be chosen the winner of 3.000€. The CEMEX Ventures Investment Committee will announce which teams will have the possibility to join CEMEX Ventures for an incubation/acceleration phase and to be invested by CEMEX Ventures.

Katerra is attempting to disrupt the construction industry "design-bid-build process" by creating a full-stack solution for the building process. The startup works with real estate developers to replace any or all of the disparate parts of the building supply chain, including architecture firms, contractors, subcontractors, engineers, and materials producers. 

Some of the construction tech trends we’re watching this year are closely related to tech trends we started watching in 2016 (mobile apps and big data). Others have been percolating for a few years now (thermal imaging and cloud computing), and we expect big advances this year. And others are just plain cool (holographic headsets and construction exoskeletons), and we want to see if they’ll make it into the mainstream this year.

In smart cities and urban tech,  BIM is one of the main generators of the embedded digital information required to achieve connected cities. more smart building sensors, and enhanced IoT capabilities.  Contractors' understanding of how people really use the built environment (and their own projects) will improve beyond anything previously imagined. Learn how blockchain technology can enable higher levels of BIM adoption. 

Real estate is the most valuable asset in the world. According to Fortune, all of the world’s real estate is worth more than $217,000,000,000. The construction industry employs 6,000,000 people. It also creates close to $1,000,000,000,000 in buildings and structures each year. Take a moment to think about those statistics. They’re mind-blowing. Land and property are extremely valuable. Businesses that develop property and facilitate the exchange of land are also quite profitable. So why are there not more startups disrupting these industries?