From robotics to software

Alex Baikovitz co-founded Mach9 Robotics in twenty twenty-one to help civil engineers do visual inspections faster and cheaper. Within years, he realized hardware was not the bottleneck.

The real pain was workflows

Engineers struggled to turn laser scanner and image data into usable surveys for design work. Baikovitz said the real pain was in their workflows and how to turn endless data into information for design decisions.

“The real pain was in their workflows”

Mach9 pivots to AI CAD

Baikovitz dropped Robotics from the company name and pivoted to developing AI-powered computer-aided design software instead. The bet paid off with nearly one hundred customers in private beta.

Thirty four million in Series A

On Wednesday, Mach9 announced a thirty four million dollar Series A funding round co-led by First Round Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners. Prudence and Quiet Capital also participated.

CAD is the bottleneck

Baikovitz said Mach9 is focused on disrupting CAD software because it is one of the slowest and most labor-intensive pieces of the construction pipeline. Legacy software from Autodesk and Bentley Systems takes months per project.

Ten times faster, lower costs

Mach9 says its software automates work that takes about a week per mile manually, making the process ten times faster and dramatically reducing costs. This lets customers expand capacity and take on bigger projects.

Centimeter-accurate AI models

Baikovitz said Mach9 developed and trained its own in-house AI models to reach the centimeter-accurate level that construction work requires. Off-the-shelf models cannot deliver this precision for the industry.

Engineers keep control

Mach9's system creates a first draft plan that engineers can refine, draw, adjust and assess. This matters because licensed professionals must put their name behind deliverables due to liability in the industry.

Funding goes to product and hiring

Baikovitz said Mach9 will split the funding between improving the product, hiring industry experts, and scaling all parts of the organization to keep up with market demand.

Customers wanted better software

Baikovitz said customers told him they did not need cheaper hardware but better software to improve efficiency on statewide transportation mapping projects. States like Texas benefit from safer and more effective infrastructure work.

“improve our efficiency in delivering these big statewide transportation mapping initiatives”