EllisDon announces 2025 ConTech Accelerator finalists

EllisDon’s ConTech Accelerator finalists for 2025 have been announced, marking the latest cohort of startups poised to transform construction technology.

Launched in 2023 by EllisDon in Partnership with Impulse partners, the initiatve seeks to drive innovation in the construction industry. The initiative’s goal is to identify and scale promising tech startups by providing access to pilot projects, expert mentorship, and industry resources across Canada.

Focused on discovery, testing, and integration, the program seeks to address key sector challenges—such as rising costs, labour shortages, and environmental pressures—by fostering collaboration and accelerating the adoption of cutting-edge solutions.

Here’s who made this year’s cut:

Buildright

Founded with a vision to empower every worker to do it right the first time, Norwegian startup Buildright turns manufacturer and contractor documentation into step-by-step, project-specific micro-learnings on mobile to reduce errors and rework. The product originated from collaborations on live jobs, including work with Scandanavian construction giant Veidekke, and now emphasises customer-approved content, AI assistance and expert QA.

RiskBlue

Worried about a rainy day? RiskBlue provides AI-driven software for high-rise builders to surface and manage water risks and to streamline related insurance and contract workflows. In 2024 the company added contract-management features for builders’ risk and water-mitigation agreements. Positioning focuses discovery of risk controls, documentation and alignment across owners, GCs, trades and insurers.

BUILDCHECK

“See it before it costs you” is the motto from the folks at BUILDCHECK. They use automation and AI to screen drawings early and flag coordination or code issues before permit or construction, aiming to cut RFIs, change orders and schedule hits. The California company reports more than 15,000 drawings and over $2B in project value reviewed, and recent case studies describe centralised reviews, error detection and quantified ROI versus manual plan checks.

Veristart

Newfoundland-based Veristart improves jobsite safety and asset control by issuing digital keys and blocking ignition unless a verified operator is authorised. Led by Craig Hannam (CEO) and Ajay Pande (CTO) and Lou Lawrence, Veristart has garnered multiple honours, including Startup of the Year at techNL’s 2024 Industry Awards and a 2024 innovation-challenge win with Hitachi Construction Machinery.

SitePhotos

SitePhotos focuses on map-centric, drone-friendly progress documentation and tools for linear civil work. Its OverSite platform integrates high-resolution orthomosaics, 3D visualisation, CAD overlays and progress tracking, and GDPermit adds ground-disturbance permitting with an auditable workflow for utilities and owners. Their team says it all began with a simple goal: to make capturing and retrieving site photographs effortless as traditional systems forced photographers to rename every image and file them into nested folders—a tedious chore that discourages field staff from taking pictures or, worse, from uploading them.

BuildSync

BuildSync automates submittal reviews by checking uploads against plans and specs and assembling compliant packages to reduce rejections and delays. The Denver-based company also offers a Procore marketplace integration. They say their tools can help get submittal rejection rates below 5%, save countless hours for your operations team to focus on building, and prevent non-compliant products from installed on your projects that need to be replaced later at a massive cost.

Birdsview

Simply put, it’s like having x-ray vision for concrete. Birdsview delivers instant, non-destructive concrete assessments using AI and computer vision to generate 3D point clouds and reinforcement insights in under a minute. Founded in 2017 by Olav Skogen and Simen Husøy while they were students in Norway, the company now boasts more than 40 clients across use cases such as bridges, airports, power stations and commercial buildings. They were recently awarded the top prize at the Contech Connect 2025 conference in Paris.

Cyphra Autonomy

Cyphra Autonomy builds robotic haulers that can automate material movement on jobsites to improve safety and productivity. Founder and CEO Sean Ward presented the system at BuiltWorlds events in 2025, and the company was named to Suffolk Technologies’ BOOST 6 cohort the same year. Public materials show development of wheeled and tracked platforms aimed at hauling pallets, pavers and masonry over rough terrain. The company aims to force multiply human labor enable crews to focus on high value activity.