This Q&A is taken from the full podcast episode we recorded with Parker.
Q: Can you tell us about your journey from marine biology to construction technology?
A: It was a little unorthodox. I went to Bowdoin College in Maine, which has deep ties with Suffolk Construction. I was playing football with a couple of guys who got jobs at Suffolk, and construction always piqued my interest. On the other hand, I was going to school to be a marine biologist and joined a white shark research team in South Africa for about six weeks. It’s not all that dissimilar to what we’re doing now. Sometimes you feel like the shark, but it was a wonderful experience.
Q: What is the Boost program, and how does it support early-stage startups in the built world?
A: Boost is our built world accelerator program, which we’ve been running since 2020. The idea is to marry smart, technologically savvy entrepreneurs with people who have longstanding operational experience within our industry. Startups apply to the program, articulating the business challenge they’re trying to accomplish. We select less than 10 companies and run an 8-week intensive program to help them solve their challenges. The program has grown from 85 applications in the first year to 212 applications from about 30 countries last year.
Q: How has Suffolk Technologies evolved from being a corporate venture capital arm to an independent entity?
A: In 2019, we began our investment journey as the CVC arm of Suffolk Construction. In 2020, we launched Boost, and in 2021, we started seeing more activity in the space. We decided to raise our first external fund and went out to raise $110 million from about 30 external investors, a 50-50 split between strategic and financial investors. We wanted to work with more companies and expand our focus beyond just the technologies Suffolk Construction would use.
Q: What are your thoughts on the dynamics between incumbents and startups in design technology?
A: There is room for a couple of unicorns in the design tech space. Some startups have made decisions that set them up not to be bought by competitors. The real danger for startups is if the incumbents decide they no longer want the startup to integrate with their software. Over the next three to five years, there will be interesting decisions made by both startups and incumbents regarding acquisitions and competition.
Q: What matters most for the adoption of construction technology?
A: Ease of implementation is probably the most important factor, even more so than ROI. The innovation life cycles for many contractors are very slow, so if a startup misses the window to sell their solution during the pre-construction phase, they may have to wait until the next project, which could be two or two and a half years later.
Q: What is Suffolk Technologies’ secret sauce for picking category winners in construction and prop tech?
A: We over-index very highly on the quality of the team. That’s second to none. You’re backing a founder, not just an idea. Our ability to help founders identify how to sell, who to sell to, and how to articulate their value proposition is our real competitive advantage. We have deep partnerships with people who are building, operating, leasing, or underwriting insurance for construction projects, giving us access to those dealing with these pain points daily.
Q: What areas of construction technology are you most excited about?
A: I’m most excited about supply chain visibility. It remains a massive issue that almost every job site in the United States is throttled with. The concern about not having the knowledge base to understand where some of the critical materials are for the job site and not being able to make informed decisions is a heavy lift, but there’s a lot of potential there.
