DOXEL

Saurabh Ladha and Robin Singh founded Doxel in 2016 after observing that the construction industry was flying blind. A typical commercial building project involves thousands of tasks, dozens of subcontractors, and millions of decisions.

But tracking actual progress against the plan relied on manual reports that were often weeks out of date and optimistically biased.

Doxel's approach was more hardware-intensive than its competitors. Instead of just cameras, they used LiDAR (laser scanning) combined with high-resolution photography to create precise 3D point clouds of construction sites.

The AI compared these scans against BIM models to measure progress down to individual components.

The precision is what set Doxel apart. Cameras can tell you a wall is there.

LiDAR can tell you the wall is 2.3 centimeters to the left of where it should be. For projects where tolerances matter, like hospitals, data centers, and semiconductor fabs, that level of accuracy is worth paying for.

Doxel charges a subscription fee for its platform plus a service component for the LiDAR scanning. Some customers use Doxel's own scanning teams, while others operate their own equipment.

The platform analyzes the scan data and generates progress reports, quality assessments, and deviation alerts.

The value proposition is tied to cost avoidance. A large hospital construction project might cost $500 million.

If Doxel catches a structural deviation that would have required $5 million in rework, the platform pays for itself many times over. The ROI math is compelling on paper.

Proving it project by project is the execution challenge.

The Doxel platform ingests LiDAR scans and photographs to create a detailed 3D model of the construction site as it exists today. AI compares this reality model against the BIM plans and calculates completion percentages for every component.

The dashboard shows project managers exactly which tasks are on schedule, behind, or defective.

Quality control is the killer feature. Doxel can detect misalignment, incorrect installations, and deviations from specifications that would be invisible to the human eye until much later in the project.

Catching a plumbing line that is 3 inches off spec before the concrete pour saves exponentially more than catching it after.

Doxel focused on the highest-value projects where precision matters most. Semiconductor fabrication plants, data centers, and healthcare facilities became their sweet spot.

These are projects where construction errors can cost tens of millions of dollars and delay timelines by months. The customers have the budget and the motivation to pay for monitoring.

In 2021, Doxel landed a contract with NVIDIA's massive data center construction project, which became a marquee reference customer. High-profile wins in the tech sector attracted other companies with ambitious construction programs.

When NVIDIA trusts you with their billion-dollar building, others pay attention.

LiDAR scanning is expensive and operationally complex. Unlike OpenSpace's walk-around-with-a-camera approach, Doxel requires either specialized equipment or periodic scanning visits.

This adds cost and friction. The construction industry is filled with people who want simplicity, not more equipment to manage.

There is also the data processing challenge. LiDAR generates enormous datasets.

A single scan of a multi-story building can be terabytes of point cloud data. Processing this quickly enough to be useful requires significant cloud computing resources, which affects margins.

Insight Partners led Doxel's $20 million Series B in 2021. A16z led the earlier seed round with a $4.5 million investment.

The a16z backing was part of the firm's broader construction tech thesis. Insight Partners brought growth-stage expertise and a portfolio of enterprise software companies.

The combination of a16z's early conviction and Insight's scaling playbook gave Doxel a strong investor base for its next phase.