Berlin Startup Kuro Just Raised $11M to Fix Construction's Hidden Time Drain

Jan de Vries · 2026-10-02

### A Berlin Startup Betting Big on Construction's Back Office Kuro Technology, a Berlin-based ConTech startup, just raised €10 million (about $11 million) to build AI that helps general contractors stop drowning in paperwork. The round was led by UVC Partners, a Munich and Berlin VC firm managing over €800 million (roughly $870 million). Foundamental, Realyze Ventures, and helloworld also joined in. Dr. Ingo Potthof, Managing Partner at UVC Partners, put it simply: "They bring years of startup experience and deep industry knowledge, which matters a great deal in construction." He added that Kuro is already delivering measurable value in estimating and expanding into procurement, accounting, and compliance. ### The Problem: Half Your Day Wasted on Documents General contractors sit at the center of every project. Their sales, estimating, procurement, and site teams spend about half their time sifting through project documentation and making sense of the data. That's a massive inefficiency. Kuro's platform processes these documents and links them into a single data model. On top of that, it builds a customer-specific rulebook covering building components, review criteria, and work packages. The platform flags contradictions between drawings and specifications before they become costly mistakes. It assesses risk, improves 3D model components, processes public tenders, and evaluates subcontractor bids. When an estimator makes a correction, it's saved into the rulebook. No more repeating the same fix on the next project. ### The Results: 90 Hours Saved Per Bid According to UVC Partners, Kuro's customers save around 90 hours per bid. And 70% of users say the tool surfaced information they would have otherwise missed. > "We see the construction industry as the foundation for progress in Europe. With Kuro, our job is to give it the technical foundation it needs to live up to this continent's ambition." — Lea Scherer, co-founder and CEO of Kuro Technology Kuro was founded in November 2024 by Lea Scherer and Jonas Minkler, who previously held leadership roles at construction-tech companies alcemy and Capmo. The company now employs 16 people. Its clients include Goldbeck, Köster, Implenia, Geiger, Riedel, and Hochtief Infrastructure — six of the largest general contractors in the German-speaking region. ### What's Next: Learning From Every Project Kuro plans to use the fresh capital to build out its AI platform so it learns and improves with every project. Jonas Minkler, co-founder and CPO, explained: "We started in estimation because that's where a project is born and decided. But the problems carry through into everything that follows: too much contradictory data and knowledge that isn't passed on from project to project." That's why Kuro is expanding step by step across the entire back office. For general contractors, the pitch is straightforward: turn your knowledge into a product, depend less on individual people as you grow, and stop losing hours to document chaos. If Kuro delivers, it could change how construction teams work — one bid at a time.