Optimizing pre-construction workflows and planning with MeltPlan
Bessemer Venture Partners leads MeltPlan’s $10 million Seed round to build the AI planning engine for the global construction industry.
Despite a surge in general labor productivity, construction labor has seen a decline. One culprit is the manual, fragmented pre-construction phase - dragged down by endless back-and-forth between contractors, owners, and architects - costing the industry billions and pushing projects months, even years, behind schedule. In 2024 alone, the US economy spent nearly $1.3 trillion on construction, with pre-construction as one of the key phases in terms of cost and time. Effective pre-construction planning can help contractors better estimate raw material quantities, collaborate with subcontractors, calculate project costs, and bid faster with more accurate estimates and fewer costly surprises down the line.
Here’s where MeltPlan steps in: the team is building an AI system designed specifically to optimize these workflows. While the Autodesks of the world accelerate design and the Procores help streamline the construction phase, MeltPlan is building the missing layer between the two - an intelligent pre-construction planning platform that helps contractors start construction with code-compliant plans optimized for both cost and timeline while aligning multiple stakeholders across owners, architects, subcontractors, and trade contractors building complex projects worth millions. MeltPlan’s AI platform is purpose-built to understand drawings, building codes, bid methodologies, and construction processes, and is already delivering productivity improvement to architects and contractors in takeoff and code-compliance.
The company’s planning engine will work through four integrated systems:
- Code: Context-aware compliance pathways for architects, engineers, and inspectors
- Cost: Risk-oriented takeoffs/quantity surveys, bid scoping, and leveling for general contractor and trade contractor pre-construction teams
- Schedule: Scenario-based sequencing and what-if planning before scope freeze
- Value: Value impact analysis and optimization recommendations for owners and developers
“Construction doesn’t fail because teams aren’t skilled or execute poorly. It fails because preconstruction teams are fragmented and commit too early without all the information. We’re building an AI system that allows teams to evaluate constraints, run scenarios, and align before plans are frozen.” —Kanav Hasija, MeltPlan Co-founder and CEO
MeltPlan’s long-term goal is to help construction teams by making project planning more intensive: surfacing constraints and tradeoffs early, aligning stakeholders before plans are frozen, and reducing the need for late-stage redlines, rework, and change orders.
The founding team is a rare combination of seasoned entrepreneurial experience, a deep construction background, and AI talent. Co-Founder and CEO Kanav Hasija previously founded Innovaccer, a healthcare data analytics company now worth over $3 billion. Co-founder and COO Tanmaya Kala was a project executive at a major US general contractor, DPR Construction, handling large commercial, healthcare, and life science projects. CTO Prithviraj Damodaran is an expert AI researcher and builder.
At Bessemer, we believe that founders building vertical AI will transform industries by expanding TAMs, boosting margins, and delivering functional outcomes at unprecedented rates. We believe that MeltPlan is well-positioned to transform pre-construction, and we’re proud to partner with the team along their journey to make construction more predictable and efficient.
Contributors
Pankaj Mitra
Partner
Pankaj Mitra is a partner in Bessemer’s Bangalore office. He is primarily focused on investments in enterprise tech, AI, and cybersecurity.
With more than 25 years of experience, Mitra joined Bessemer after serving on Cisco’s corporate development team, where he led investments and M&A activity for the global customer experiences portfolio and for India over seven years. His investments at Cisco included Fiddler (AI observability), Uniphore (contact center AI) and Whatfix (digital adoption). Previously, he worked at Infosys in a similar role and was part of the founding team for its $500 million innovation fund, investing in companies such as Ideaforge (NSE: IDEAFORGE) and Whoop.
Earlier in his career, Mitra helped launch VMware’s first cloud services as a product manager and was a management consultant at Deloitte.
Mitra holds a degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
