Finnish startup Caidio with data-driven and AI-powered digital quality assurance solutions for concrete construction has collected $1.5M from many investors including ADB Ventures, MiraclePlus, AINS Ventures, HBG Invest, and Random Ventures (Peter Vesterbacka and Kustaa Valtonen) in a seed round. This will help the company change the way of concrete production starting in Asia.
Founded in 2018 by CEO Aku Wilenius and CTO Pasi Karppinen, Caidio’s artificial intelligence-powered platform revolutionizes the quality assurance of concrete production with its target to lower carbon footprint of the industry by reducing cement usage, the main ingredient of concrete. One of the ideas is to use recycled concrete instead of brand new aggregates since crushed concrete is a waste material. Caidio helps concrete producers utilize recycled concrete and other aggregates by offering a digital quality control solution where producers are provided with precise data on the used raw materials for producing homogenous concrete.
Finnish AI-startup Caidio raises $1.5 million to transform concrete production and cut emissions in construction
Smart concrete quality assurance startup Caidio has raised $1.5 million in its seed funding round to transform concrete production, particularly in Asia. Investors such as ADB Ventures – the Asian Development Bank’s venture arm, MiraclePlus, AINS Ventures, HBG Invest, and Random Ventures (Peter Vesterbacka and Kustaa Valtonen) have also participated in this round.
Concrete is the most used human-made material in the world. Its versatility and durability make concrete the most popular material in the construction industry. However, the concrete industry comes with a colossal carbon footprint as it contributes 7% to 8% of global carbon emissions mostly because of the large carbon footprint of its main ingredient, cement.
Founded in 2018 by CEO Aku Wilenius and CTO Pasi Karppinen, Caidio offers an Artificial Intelligence-powered platform that revolutionizes the quality assurance of concrete production. Its digital products, such as Caidio Water Content Optimizer, use vast amounts of data from concrete production to provide real-time insight into the quality properties of concrete during the production process. This results in improved quality of concrete, increased productivity of the manufacturing operations, as well as reduced greenhouse gas emissions in the construction industry.
“The typical quality properties of concrete that we use to build our cities and infrastructure are currently tested manually with methods invented more than a century ago. Caidio’s state of the art digital quality assurance solutions can help save up to $6B in cement usage in concrete production and reduce millions of tonnes of CO2 in the rapidly urbanizing Asia each year,” said Aku Wilenius, CEO and Co-Founder of Caidio.
“Cement production alone accounts for over 14% of total carbon emissions in the People’s Republic of China’s, the world’s largest cement producer. Caidio is uniquely positioned to disrupt the concrete production space with its advanced data analytics and plug-and-play software. We believe Caidio’s technology will bring tremendous economic benefits to their clients and enable the industry to become greener and greater,” said Qiyong Cao, ADB Ventures’ Senior Investment Specialist.
“The CO2 footprint is a challenge for the built environment. Caidio has developed a service that is competitive on the global stage. Technology innovations, such as the one developed by Caidio, are the key to solving the sustainability challenges facing the real estate and construction sector,” said Jaakko Jauhiainen, AINS Group CTO.
The company plans to release a suite of new digital products which analyze the core properties of concrete in production, providing concrete producers with real-time visibility on concrete quality while optimizing the efficiency of the production operations.
Caidio’s current solution has been piloted at several concrete production facilities in China. With demonstrable reductions in carbon emissions and raw material usage, along with more optimal financial operations, it is looking at solid prospects of expanding its offering beyond concrete production.
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