Build, a startup applying artificial intelligence to infrastructure due diligence, has raised $8.5 million in seed funding led by Index Ventures. The company says its platform compresses technical site assessments and regulatory checks from weeks into hours, a change that could reshape how real estate and construction teams evaluate project sites.
Founded by architect James Stirrat-Ellis and AI researcher Ben McClusky, the London and New York-based company draws on data from over 1,600 sources. The system evaluates planning, environmental, power, and political constraints in parallel rather than in sequence, claiming to cut due diligence timelines by more than 95%. Investors include Pebblebed, Puzzle Ventures, and Tiny.vc, with angel backing from OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, Blackstone CTO John Stecher, and figures from Meta AI Research and Google Maps.
Team and technical background
Stirrat-Ellis previously worked at Heatherwick Studio on large-scale projects such as Changi Airport Terminal 5 in Singapore. McClusky's research focused on multi-agent systems and reinforcement learning. The wider team includes infrastructure specialists from Blackstone, Tishman Speyer, Starwood Capital, and JP Morgan, along with people who have direct data centre development experience.
A different business model
Build sells the output - completed development work - rather than software licences. Its AI systems run thousands of tasks simultaneously, but every client deliverable is reviewed by human operators before it goes out. The company describes this as "agentic real estate," a term used for the longer-term ambition of automating the development lifecycle from site selection through permitting, engineering, pre-construction, and asset management. This approach reflects the broader category of AI Agents & Automation, where systems handle complex multi-step tasks with human oversight.
The platform has already been deployed across more than 100 projects in 15 countries for governments, Fortune 500 companies, and institutional real estate groups including Tishman Speyer. That traction signals AI for Real Estate & Construction is moving from pilot programmes to operational use.
Growth plans
The seed funding will expand Build's engineering and infrastructure teams, accelerate R&D, and extend its presence across North America and Europe. The company is headquartered in New York.
Stirrat-Ellis said: "The industries shaping the physical world have spent decades trapped in process instead of creativity. By removing that operational burden, we can help teams move faster, make better decisions and deliver better infrastructure."
Why this matters for real estate and construction
Site due diligence still consumes weeks of manual effort across most firms, tying up senior staff and delaying decision-making. A platform that cuts that process to hours gives development teams the ability to evaluate more locations, identify risks earlier, and reallocate time to design and negotiation rather than paperwork. For real estate and construction professionals, the shift toward AI-driven assessment is not about replacing judgment - it's about freeing experienced people from repetitive research tasks so they can focus on the work that actually moves projects forward.
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