Eduardo Gomez is on the lookout for contech companions.
As head of CRH Ventures, the contech funding arm of Dublin-based constructing supplies agency CRH, Gomez is in search of founders who wish to associate and work collectively to get to market.
The VC has made seven investments, together with sustainable cement producer Chic Methods and carbon seize firm Cool Planet Applied sciences, with extra to come back. It additionally runs three completely different accelerator applications for startups, in water, roads and sustainable constructing supplies.
Right here, Gomez talks with Development Dive about what, particularly, the agency is on the lookout for in startups, the outcomes of earlier accelerator cohorts, and what he sees as the large building expertise areas to look at in 2025.
Editor’s Word: This interview has been edited for brevity and readability.
CONSTRUCTION DIVE: As the company funding arm of CRH, what firms are you investing in?
EDUARDO GOMEZ: We’ve raised our first, $250 million fund. We’re utilizing that cash to put money into firms throughout the water, decarbonization, circularity and productiveness areas.
We’re trying to determine nice firms that we will associate with, and our thought is just not solely to consider investing in firms, however extra broadly, how will we associate with these firms? We predict that funding is among the methods during which we will do this.
As an example, we adore it after we can help founders and administration financially via an fairness funding, but in addition the place we will take that resolution to market.
Eduardo Gomez
Permission granted by CRH Ventures
Finally, all of this retains our operations centered. Our portfolio could be very effectively related to our enterprise, and subsequently to our prospects. All the pieces that we do retains the shopper on the core. So we’re excited after we see that come to life.
How do the accelerators match into your funding technique?
As a part of our funding course of, we search for methods to determine firms and collaborate. Along with investing, we like to determine business relationships with the businesses that we associate with. The accelerator program is a good instance of that.
We’re now in our third cohort of the accelerator applications. We began with our first program within the water area. Then, we did one throughout roads. We at the moment are in the midst of our third cohort, throughout sustainable constructing supplies. That one could be very a lot related to our completely different companies in Europe and the Americas.
The concept is to facilitate engagement between founders and startups with giant strategic gamers in several areas. And from there, many issues can occur.
We determine alternatives to pilot and assist the businesses speed up their scaling course of, and we validate their options and their choices with our groups and companions.
How did the earlier accelerator cohorts end up?
All of them have gone fairly effectively, so we preserve doing them.
Each time, we’re trying to enhance, to study what we will do higher and in a different way.
However the primary headline from every program has been nice engagement from startups. The appliance is sort of simple, it is not cumbersome. For the candidates, they’re very a lot excited to see that after we join, we’re bringing our full staff — CRH — to the desk.
It isn’t solely the enterprise facet, however now we have people who find themselves consultants of their fields, who’re connecting with them, giving them concepts, validating their options.
The pilots, as you possibly can anticipate, some do higher than others. We have invested in some firms from these applications. However total, we’re more than happy and really excited to see the progress we’ve made.
What are the large applied sciences you’re keeping track of in 2025?
There is a massive alternative with new supplies, and that is why we launched this program. We consider this area nonetheless has a giant space for disruption, and there is nonetheless nice alternatives for brand spanking new gamers to come back into the area, whether or not they pursue circularity or decarbonization. The demand is there.
In different areas, we expect every little thing round robotics goes to proceed to develop once you have a look at a number of the massive themes in our trade. The labor scarcity continues to be a problem. Demand is rising, and so we expect that robotics can speed up the way in which we take into consideration our building course of.
Whether or not it is on the job website or on the procurement facet, we expect robotics goes to play a giant position and we’ll see, probably, some migration from different industries which have adopted robotics already, far more than now we have.
Take into consideration what we have seen within the automotive trade. I believe a few of that may transfer into our area.
