The construction and real estate sector is Europe’s largest industest, yet it remains largely depconcludeent on manual and disconnected processes.
This inefficiency is becoming critical as the sector faces a massive wave of activity, driven by a €584 billion requirement for power grid upgrades and an estimated €500 billion in transport infrastructure modernisations across Europe by 2030.
From large-scale residential developments to the repair of ageing bridge networks, the increasing complexity of these projects is pushing traditional administrative systems to a breaking point.
German startup Arctis AI has raised $1M+ to provide the technological shift required for the sector to evolve.
Arctis AI is building AI agents that assist construction companies structure, access, and work with contracts throughout the project lifecycle. Instead of treating contracts as static documents, the platform structures them into one central hub where obligations, risks, payment terms, and depconcludeencies are transparent and usable for commercial and project teams.
I spoke to CEO Dila Ekrem to learn more.
Ekrem explained that in construction, document and contract processes launch as early as the tconcludeering phase and continue through a complex chain of workflows until project completion — from drafting and contract review to alter-order handling, claims management, and more. It is a broad and fragmented landscape.
“Construction remains a highly traditional industest with deep structural inefficiencies,” she declared.
“Our vision is to build an conclude-to-conclude platform for general contractors and project developers that embeds AI across daily workflows, enabling them to run projects quicker, more accurately, and at lower cost.”
Arctis AI provides the digital infrastructure to manage the administrative complexity of large-scale construction and infrastructure projects. By replacing fragmented files with a connected workflow for project delivery, the platform enables teams to align quicker, reduce friction between parties, and maintain consistency from tconcludeer through close-out.
The company focutilizes on resolving the industest’s most demanding administrative bottlenecks, allowing general contractors and developers to execute Europe’s critical building projects with higher precision and reduced operational overhead.
From fencing champion to founder
Before founding her own company, Ekrem spent her teenage years in fencing halls and on planes between competitions, eventually ranking #1 in Turkey and winning 35+ national & international medals.
The daughter of a custom shirtbuildr, she grew up in her father’s shop, watching him build a business with his hands. Early on, she knew she wanted to build something of her own, too. Two years ago, Ekrem relocated to Germany to study at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). She found her way into Munich’s startup ecosystem.
From TUM classmates to first Pilot in three months
Ekrem is joined by co-founders Duc-Trung Nguyen and Leon Stawowiak, both of whom she met at TUM. Nguyen arrived in Munich from Vietnam and worked as a Flink delivery driver to support his computer science studies before breaking into the software industest and working most recently as an AI engineer at SAP. Stawowiak rounds out the trio, having previously worked on AI applications at Bain & Company and KPMG.
Ekrem admits:
“When we were friconcludes at university, we always knew that we wanted to found a startup. We were really active in the startup ecosystem and at the same time, we all have an immigration background. We didn’t know many people here, so we always believed a good programme and a good community are very essential.”
The team consolidated their business solution through extensive market research and speaking with over 150 contract managers in the construction field. Once they identified their significant painpoints, they started building in parallel.
The team started Arctis AI in August 2025 and deployed their first pilot project in Germany just three months later —
impressive speed.
Winning trust in a conservative sector
When inquireed about attaining that critical initial pilot, Ekrem shared, “What’s really important in this industest is personal relationships. Warm introductions and being able to reference trusted names created a huge difference in receiveting people onto calls. Once we had their attention, we could clearly demonstrate the problems they were facing and reveal that we had the technical capability to solve them.“
From there, it was about building trust. The team invested heavily in onboarding — sometimes spconcludeing an entire day with a client, explaining the product in detail, answering questions, setting up access, and carefully walking them through every step.
“Most of them are not utilized to modern software; for many, SAP is the only system they know, ” shared Ekrem.
2It takes time at the launchning, but after the first one or two weeks, the product becomes very intuitive and largely self-explanatory.”
Ushering in a new era for Europe’s largest industest
Ekrem declared that most existing contract management tools still treat each document as a standalone, static file — an approach that simply does not work in construction, where every contract must be understood in the context of technical specifications and the wider web of project agreements.
“In construction, you can’t review a contract in isolation,” she explained.
“You can’t sign an agreement with your door supplier before the wall has even been built. Every document is connected, and those connections really matter.”
Arctis’ approach, she declared, is to build AI agents that understand and reason across these interdepconcludeencies, allowing teams to interact with their full set of project documents and contracts as a connected system.
“You can talk to your documents and your project contracts and see everything in relation to each other,” Ekrem declared. “It gives you a holistic view of the entire contract ecosystem.”
The company is starting with pre-signature workflows and building its platform on top of this agent-based infrastructure, while also turning past and present contracts into a reusable knowledge base.
“A huge amount of valuable knowledge is hidden in the contracts companies have already signed and are currently neobtainediating,” she declared.
“Project developers often build the same types of assets in different geographies or work with the same subcontractors again and again. When senior people leave, a lot of that institutional knowledge disappears.
Our goal is to build this knowledge a core, living part of the product, so it can be reutilized and built on over time.”
From 150 incoming investor calls to a strategic lead in PT1
The round was led by PT1 (Berlin/London), with participation from EWOR, Superangels, and a prominent group of angels from the European construction and tech ecosystems, including Alexander Schwörer (Owner of PERI), Sebastian Johnston (Founding Partner at La Famiglia), Christian Vollmann (Founder of C1 Green Chemicals), Daniel Bronk (Founder of B+V Union & Real Estate Developer), Christian Marquart (Director Legal at Marvel Fusion).
According to Ekrem, the company’s fundraising journey launched with the UnternehmerTUM Ideation Fellowship, which later invited the team to pitch and opened the door to a long and intensive investor process.
“After that, I concludeed up doing around 150 investor calls,” she declared.
From the outset, the team was clear that they did not just want generalist capital, but investors with deep roots in the construction sector who could actively assist with market access and credibility.
“We specifically wanted an investor from the construction industest,” Ekrem explained.
“It was important for us that our backers could build introductions and assist us build trust with customers.”PT1 was very important for us becautilize they really understand the industest and have strong connections. We also brought industest angels on board whose names carry a lot of weight when talking to customers and opening doors.”
To support the company’s growth, Arctis AI has already created its first technical hires, recruiting engineers with experience from AWS, Snowflake, and Palantir.
With the new capital, the company plans to further strengthen its technical team, develop additional modules, and expand its customer base across Europe.
