LeanCon raises $6 million to reinvent construction planning with AI across New York
Manhattan, NY - LeanCon, an AI startup focused on pre-construction, has closed a $6 million seed round, doubling its original $3 million target.
The round was led by Ibex Investors with participation from Fusion VC, Newman Architects, TCA LA, Connecticut Innovations, Siegel Capital, a publicly traded construction firm, and a group of industry angels. Notably, investors include Phil Bernstein, former VP of AEC at Autodesk and current deputy dean at the Yale School of Architecture.
Pre-construction in minutes, not months
Pre-construction teams often spend months evaluating, scoping, and pricing hundreds of pursuits, with only ~8% turning into live jobs. LeanCon's platform generates detailed construction projections in about seven minutes, shifting effort from manual takeoffs and spreadsheets to decision-making.
The company says customers are improving win rates and pipeline quality while reducing planning costs from roughly $2 million to near zero. The system draws from each client's past projects and proprietary data to fit their workflow, while surfacing options and efficiencies they might otherwise miss.
Live on major New York projects
LeanCon's technology is already in use across $650 million of development in New York. With every design or scope change, the platform updates schedules, costs, logistics, and construction methods instantly.
The startup is also working with one of the largest privately held construction and real estate development firms in the U.S., a relationship that has evolved into a strategic partnership.
What leaders are saying
Ziv Levi, CEO and co-founder: "Construction projects are simply too complex to plan optimally and, until now, the system wasn't built for that complexity, especially given the growing challenges facing the industry. LeanCon has rebuilt construction planning with AI and will ultimately save project teams time and money while simultaneously winning more development bids."
Phil Bernstein, advisor and investor: "I told them the technology sounded impossible. But - nine months later, after LeanCon demonstrated a working MVP on a live Manhattan project, I was on board. I am pleased to be an advisor and investor as they work to solve real and pressing problems for the industry. That combination of deep construction knowledge and technical execution is exactly what makes LeanCon so compelling."
Aaron Rinberg, partner at Ibex Investors: "The team at LeanCon are building more than software, they're redefining the future of construction. By transforming pre-construction from a manual, drawn-out process into an intelligent, automated workflow, LeanCon is unlocking unprecedented efficiency and value creation in a very traditional industry."
Impact for owners, developers, and GCs
- Shorten schedules by up to 20% through instant scenario updates as inputs change.
- Reduce pre-construction planning costs from ~$2 million to near $0.
- Improve bid quality and selectivity, with clearer risk and cost visibility.
- Increase profitability and capacity to take on more projects without adding headcount.
- Expand use cases into infrastructure and public-sector planning where cutting overruns can deliver meaningful taxpayer value.
Founders with field experience
Co-founders Ziv Levi (CEO) and Sapir Tubul (CTO) grew up on job sites with fathers in the trades, then worked as engineers on large-scale projects. They saw how a small change could upend the whole plan, and set out to make pre-construction data-driven and fast.
That practical background helped win over industry veterans. Bernstein was skeptical at first, then joined after seeing the MVP run on a live Manhattan project.
For teams building AI capability
If your pre-construction or operations teams are starting to add AI into daily workflows, you can explore role-based upskilling options here: AI courses by job.
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