H2Corporation (Tokyo, Japan), announced today that the company has closed a 310MM Yen Pre-Series A financing co-lead by Spiral Capital and JAFCO Group, with participation from Boost Capital, One Capital, and MetaProp. H2Corporation develops AI to automate various construction planning and management processes.

‍

H2Corporation was founded by Hiro Kawashima, a former startup CEO (Prescience Health, acquired by Flexwise Health) whose family business is a 120-year old HVAC and plumbing subcontractor. He is joined by a team of others including Chief Technology and Data Officer Tung Nguyen, who lead the first LLM engineering team at LINE Corporation. 

‍

“In Japan, construction demand is far outpacing labor supply in all aspects of construction,” says Kawashima. “We recognize that a 20 to 30 percent productivity improvement that construction companies achieved with legacy software is no longer enough. Our goal is to develop AI applications that helps customers achieve 10X improvements in productivity, cost and quality.” 

‍

In 2023, H2 released AI Sekisan, an AI platform to automate material takeoffs. Material takeoffs are a critical part of any construction estimation process and until now, have been heavily labor intensive and prone to errors. AI Sekisan improves the material takeoff process as much as 90 percent while retaining 95 percent accuracy. Unlike other material takeoff platforms, AI Sekisan can recognize complex pipe and duct routes and can associate text information included in each drawing with its material counterpart. As Nguyen shared, “Our ability to develop a platform that can perform far more complex material takeoffs than competitors is rooted in our ability to not only build advanced deep learning models but also in our ability to develop pre-and-post processing algorithms that greatly increases material recognition.”

‍

AI Sekisan is utilized by various subcontractors and trades in Japan. In addition, H2 has partnered with some of the largest general contractors, subcontractors, and construction materials manufacturers to expand the capabilities of AI Sekisan.

‍

“We are very pleased to co-lead the investment in H2. H2 has succeeded in developing  proprietary AI that improves the material takeoff process by an order of magnitude,” says Takashi Chiba, General Partner at Spiral Capital. “I am confident that H2 can become a world class construction tech company.”

‍

With this recent funding, H2 will expand sales and support capabilities for AI Sekisan and develop new features to automate electrical and structural steel takeoffs. H2 believes that AI Sekisan will one day automate material takeoffs for an entire building including all of its trades.

‍

“I am very pleased to participate in H2’s latest financing round. Material takeoff is labor-intensive not only in Japan but also in the United States, and I believe there is a significant need to reduce working hours through the use of AI. Construction takeoffs

represent a perfect use case for the implementation of computer vision technology and the

company has proprietary best in class technology to ensure that artificial intelligence can

achieve these complex tasks faster and with more accuracy than humans. I am confident that the company will grow to lead the construction tech industry in Japan,” says Zach Aarons, Co-Founder and General Partner at MetaProp.

‍

For more information about how H2 is revolutionizing construction material takeoffs, visit https://www.aisekisan.com/en