Kaya AI emerges from stealth with $5.3M to digitize construction supply chains

Kaya AI has emerged from stealth mode with $5.3 million in pre-seed funding to tackle construction supply chain management through artificial intelligence. The startup’s platform promises to reduce procurement management time by 80% and improve lead-time accuracy by 90%, targeting an industry that has remained stubbornly resistant to technology upgrades despite widespread adoption of cloud-based project management tools.

What you should know: Kaya’s AI-driven platform focuses on mission-critical infrastructure projects like data centers, where tight timelines and demanding schedules create the most challenging procurement environments.

• The platform includes an AI assistant called Jarvis that centralizes communications, automates ordering tasks, and delivers real-time information about delivery delays and facility shutdowns.
• Kaya was a standout member of Suffolk’s BOOST 4 cohort in 2023, demonstrating its potential for transforming construction workflows.

The big picture: Construction supply chains have remained largely dependent on Excel spreadsheets despite the complexity of vendor relationships and scheduling requirements across projects.

• “If you think about what AI is powering today, our goal is to create a way that information and data flows through construction fundamentally differently,” explained CEO and Co-founder Ojonimi Bako at the BuiltWorlds conference in June.
• The platform enables bidirectional information flow between all stakeholders, eliminating the traditional linear chain from owner to architect to subcontractor to supplier.

Who’s backing this: The funding round was led by 53 Stations, Suffolk Technologies, and Soma Capital, with additional investment from Barclays Black Formation Investments, RXR, Mantis VC, and Virta Ventures.

• Suffolk Technologies, the investment arm of Suffolk Construction, sees Kaya as addressing a traditionally opaque workflow by bringing greater visibility to each stakeholder and simplifying decision-making.

What they’re saying: Industry leaders emphasize the critical need for digital transformation in construction supply chains.

• “Kaya’s platform has made it easier to identify meaningful data points in a traditionally opaque workflow, bringing greater visibility to each stakeholder and simplifying decision-making,” says Mack Rush, emerging technology associate with Suffolk Boost.
• Lovisa Tedestedt from Schneider Electric, a global energy management company, highlighted the advantages of early supplier involvement: “There’s so much advantage to digital transparency. That is really where I think Kaya can step up and be a huge part of this…. We have to have a digital solution to get away from spreadsheets.”

Why this matters: The construction industry’s resistance to supply chain digitization creates significant inefficiencies, particularly in mission-critical projects where delays can have cascading effects across entire developments.