Berlin Startup Kuro Lands $11M to Revolutionize Construction with AI

Jan de Vries · 2026-10-02

You know how general contractors are always drowning in paperwork? Well, a Berlin-based startup called Kuro Technology just raised €10 million (about $11 million) to change that with AI. And they're not messing around. ### The Funding Round The round was led by UVC Partners, a Munich- and Berlin-based VC firm with over $880 million in assets under management. They've backed big names like Isar Aerospace and Aleph Alpha, so they know a thing or two about deep tech. Foundamental, Realyze Ventures, and helloworld also chipped in. Dr. Ingo Potthof, Managing Partner at UVC Partners, said, "We're delighted to be working with Lea and Jonas. We have known each other for many years, since well before Kuro was founded. They bring years of startup experience and deep industry knowledge, which matters a great deal in construction." He added, "And it's paying off: they are already delivering measurable value to customers with their first use cases in estimating, and are gradually extending the product to other back-office processes such as procurement, accounting, and compliance. The fast-growing customer base of leading general contractors proves their strategy right." ### What Kuro Does 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 has 16 employees and is on a mission to tackle a massive inefficiency in construction. Here's the deal: general contractors sit at the center of every project, but their teams spend about half their time just sifting through documents and trying to make sense of data. Kuro's platform processes all that documentation and links it into a single data model. On top of that, Kuro builds a custom rulebook for each customer, covering their specific building components, review criteria, and work packages. The platform flags contradictions between drawings and specs before they turn into costly mistakes. It also assesses risk, improves 3D model components, processes public tenders, and evaluates subcontractor bids. And when an estimator makes a correction, it's saved into the rulebook, so the same fix doesn't need to be made again on the next project. ### Real Results According to UVC Partners, Kuro's customers are saving around 90 hours per bid. That's huge. And 70% of users say the tool surfaced information they would have otherwise missed. Their clients include Goldbeck, Köster, Implenia, Geiger, Riedel, and Hochtief Infrastructure – six of the largest general contractors in the German-speaking region. "We see the construction industry as the foundation for progress in Europe," said Scherer, co-founder and CEO of Kuro Technology. "With Kuro, our job is to give it the technical foundation it needs to live up to this continent's ambition. The general contractors that manage to turn their knowledge into a product will depend less on individual people as they grow." ### What's Next? Kuro plans to use the fresh capital to build out its AI platform so it learns and improves with every project. 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 we're now expanding the platform step by step across the entire back office, building a system that learns and gets better with every project." So keep an eye on Kuro. They're not just building software; they're building a brain for construction.