Weekly Briefing Friday, October 2, 2026 |
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This Week in PropTech & ConTechCurated intelligence on deals, technology, and the built world.
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 PR Newswire · United States Bain Capital Puts About $250M Into Kahua at a Valuation Above $1BAlpharetta, Georgia-based Kahua, a construction platform used by large asset owners to run capital programmes such as airports, hospitals, schools and defence facilities, has taken a minority growth investment from Bain Capital Tech Opportunities at a valuation above $1 billion. Bloomberg reports the cheque at about $250 million, making Bain the largest outside investor. Kahua says it has reached $100 million in annualised revenue. Its last known round, in 2019, valued it at roughly $100 million. Kahua sells to the owner, not the contractor. The US Navy selected it as its electronic construction management system in 2025, and in June it became the first construction management platform cleared to run AI inside a FedRAMP-certified environment. Owner-side programme software built for public and sovereign clients is now a billion-dollar category. Read more → |
 PR Newswire · United States Miter Raises a $40M Series B to Run Payroll and HR for ContractorsSan Francisco-based Miter raised a $40 million Series B led by Battery Ventures, with Bessemer Venture Partners and Coatue returning, taking total funding to $78 million. The platform connects payroll, HR, field operations, job costing and expenses for more than 2,000 contractors, from ENR Top 20 builders to family-owned specialty firms. The company says roughly 2% of US construction workers are now paid through it, and its customer count has tripled since its Series A in May 2025. Construction payroll is a compliance problem before it is a software problem: prevailing wage, certified payroll, multi-state tax and OSHA records can all be triggered by one crew. Miter is using that complexity as its entry point and building outward into the rest of the contractor back office. Read more → |
 Partech · France Rayon Raises a €10M Series A for Browser-Based Interior Design CADParis-based Rayon raised €10 million in a Series A led by Partech, with Northzone, Foundamental and Seedcamp following on, bringing total funding to nearly €16 million. Its browser-based drawing tool is built for interior designers, architects and space planners, and more than 4 million drawings have been created on it. Early angels include Norman Foster of Foster + Partners. Version 4, due later this year, adds 3D and agentic AI. Autodesk, Trimble and Nemetschek build for architects and engineers. Rayon is betting that fit-out and interiors, a large share of the work on any building, is a separate software market that the incumbents have left underserved. Read more → |
 GlobeNewswire · United States EliseAI Raises $350M at a $4B ValuationNew York-based EliseAI raised $350 million at a $4 billion valuation, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners, with Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Sapphire Ventures and Navitas Capital participating. The valuation is close to double the $2.2 billion it carried after its $250 million round in August 2025. The company says it powers one in six US apartment units and passed $200 million in annual recurring revenue in 2026, its fifth straight year of 100% growth. Earlier in September it launched Apollo, an agentic AI teammate that completes tasks inside operators' existing property management systems rather than passing them back to on-site staff. Capital in proptech is concentrating in a few scaled AI platforms that do the work, not just answer the enquiry. Read more → |
 PR Newswire · United States Homeward Raises a $120M Series D Plus $330M of Asset-Backed DebtAustin-based Homeward raised $120 million in Series D equity led by Saluda Grade, an asset-backed credit investor, with Citi Ventures, Magnetar, Norwest, Adams Street Partners and others participating. It also secured $330 million in asset-backed debt facilities to fund more home transactions. Homeward lets homeowners buy their next home before selling, or take a cash offer, and has worked with more than 25,000 agents and facilitated over $4 billion in transactions. The equity priced at roughly the same valuation as its 2021 Series C, which was reported at just above $800 million. Flat is the new up for balance-sheet proptech, and the debt facility, nearly three times the equity, is what actually funds growth. Read more → |
 Wamda · Saudi Arabia erad Raises a $22M Series A Led by MEVPRiyadh-based erad raised $22 million (SAR78.75 million) in a Series A led by MEVP, with new investors Saudi Venture Capital, 500 Global, S60 Ventures, ANB Capital, Conjunction Capital and Araya Ventures, and existing backers Khwarizmi, Nuwa Capital, Aljazira Capital, Oraseya and Joa Capital. erad provides Shariah-compliant working-capital financing of up to SAR10 million to SMEs in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with approvals in about 48 hours. It reports 8x year-on-year growth in the Kingdom and more than SAR500 million deployed. The new money targets capital-intensive sectors including industrial, logistics and manufacturing. Working capital remains the bottleneck for the SMEs that sit underneath the Kingdom's project pipeline. Read more → |
 Wamda · UAE Shorooq and G42's Presight Join Maven Robotics' $100M Series AAbu Dhabi's Shorooq and Presight, a G42 company, invested in Santa Clara-based Maven Robotics' $100 million Series A through the Presight–Shorooq AI Fund and Bedaya Fund, alongside RoboStrategy, LocalGlobe, Vine Ventures and XTX Ventures. Founded in 2024, Maven builds autonomous industrial robots for logistics and manufacturing, starting with mixed-case palletising and tote handling. Its robots run up to 16 hours a day at customer sites with above 99% reliability, and it plans to build 250 third-generation machines. UAE capital is moving into physical AI and pairing the cheque with compute and enterprise access through G42. The founder says he sees the region as a node from which to take the robots global. Read more → |
 MEP Middle East · Saudi Arabia PIF's RUA AlHaram AlMakki and Malaysia's MRCB Study a $5.6B Makkah DevelopmentRUA AlHaram AlMakki, the PIF-owned master developer of King Salman Gate in Makkah, signed a cooperation agreement with Malaysian developer MRCB to study an integrated mixed-use development with an indicative gross development value of SAR21 billion ($5.6 billion). The scope includes a public bus station alongside residential, commercial and retail components. The agreement was signed in Kuala Lumpur with PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan attending. It is a study, subject to due diligence, approvals, financing and definitive agreements. It follows last week's ROSHN and TMG Saudi deal and continues the pattern of PIF bringing foreign developers in to share delivery. Read more → |
 AGBI · UAE Aldar and Arada Partner on $4B of Abu Dhabi ProjectsAldar and Dubai-based Arada will form a joint venture to develop a large mixed-use community at Seih Sdeirah, covering 1.5 million square metres on the Abu Dhabi to Dubai border. Arada will also acquire three residential plots on Yas Island. Aldar values the projects at AED15 billion ($4 billion) combined. Foreign investment in Abu Dhabi real estate reached nearly AED14 billion in the first half of 2026, up 309% year on year. Large regional developers are increasingly co-developing rather than competing for the same land, which concentrates technology buying decisions in fewer, bigger programmes. Read more → |
Long Read “Who Counts as Your AI Competition?”Zoë B. Cullen et al., Harvard Business School AI Institute
Zoë Cullen of Harvard Business School, with co-authors from the European Central Bank, Goethe University Frankfurt and UCLA, ran a field experiment with 3,316 firms across twelve EU countries. Actual AI investment averaged 28%, yet firms underestimated domestic competitors by an average of 14 percentage points and foreign competitors by 7. Every country wrongly assumed Germany, France and Italy were out-investing them; those three averaged 25%, and six countries beat them. When half the firms were shown the real figures, they planned to put 10.13% of total investment into AI over the next year, against 8.33% in the control group. Only domestic information moved plans: a one-point rise in expected local peer adoption lifted intended AI investment by 0.57 points, while foreign benchmarks had no significant effect. For anyone selling technology in the Gulf, the lesson is direct. Global case studies show what is possible, but buyers act on proof from local peers. One live Saudi reference does more than ten foreign ones. Read the essay → |
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