Why we invested: KonstructIQ

At Morado Ventures, our investment thesis is anchored in a singular conviction: we are in the midst of a “data-fueled revolution” that is fundamentally reshaping the global economy. 

For the past decade, we have sought out “systems builders” founders who don’t just build tools, but architect entirely new operating systems for legacy industries. We’ve seen this revolution take hold in the digital realm, but our gaze has increasingly turned toward the physical world, the “virgin ground” where technology has yet to fully infiltrate. From bringing AI to poultry farming with Flox to automating recycling with Everest Labs, the pattern is the same: a massive, essential industry plagued by inefficiency, awaiting a catalyst.

We are thrilled to announce our investment in KonstructIQ. A company that perfectly embodies our thesis, led by two visionary leaders we have had the privilege of backing before: Irv Henderson and Leo Jiang.

 

The Founders: A Legacy of Systems Building

In early-stage venture capital, the team is the single most predictive factor of success. Our investment in KonstructIQ is, fundamentally, an investment in Irv and Leo.

We first partnered with them in 2012 when they founded Talech. At the time, most small businesses were trapped in clunky, server-based POS systems. Talech changed the game by treating the point-of-sale not just as a cash register, but as a data capture device. They democratized "Big Data" for the coffee shop owner, providing insights once reserved for enterprise giants.

Talech’s success—serving over 8,000 businesses and processing billions in volume—culminated in its acquisition by U.S. Bank in 2019. Following the exit, Irv served as Chief Digital Officer at U.S. Bank, giving him a unique "fintech fluency" at the intersection of banking, payments, and vertical software.

Irv and Leo are "systems builders" who are not discovering how to run a company; they are executing a playbook they helped write. Their partnership is battle-tested: Leo, the technical architect (CTO), has a proven ability to mask extreme complexity behind consumer-grade simplicity, while Irv (CEO) possesses the strategic vision to navigate complex, fragmented markets.

The Market: The Crisis of the "Built World"

The residential construction sector generates over $1.4 trillion in annual GDP, yet it remains one of the least digitized sectors in the world. While manufacturing productivity has skyrocketed over the last fifty years, construction productivity has remained stubbornly flat.

The industry faces three primary crises:

• The Institutional Knowledge Bottleneck: In most SMB construction firms, the ability to estimate a job lives exclusively in the head of the owner. This "gut feel" approach is unscalable and creates a "growth ceiling."
• The Cash Flow Crunch: Construction is capital intensive but cash poor. Contractors often act as the "bank" for a project, paying for materials and labor months before they are reimbursed by the client.
• The "Frankenstein" Tech Stack: Most contractors manage million-dollar projects using a disconnected mess of Excel sheets, Word docs, and WhatsApp threads.

The Solution: A Financial-First Operating System

KonstructIQ is not merely a project management tool; it is a comprehensive financial operating system. Unlike legacy players that focus on schedules (Gantt charts) and try to "bolt on" financials later, KonstructIQ recognizes that for the contractor, cash flow is the schedule.

Key pillars of the platform include:

• AI-Powered Estimating: Using a "Describe. Review. Done." workflow, KonstructIQ utilizes Generative AI to transform estimating from a multi-day ordeal into a minutes-long task. It decomposes a simple prompt (e.g., "Build a 20x20 deck") into a detailed line-item breakdown of excavation, lumber, and labor.
• Unified Data Model (Estimate = Budget): In traditional workflows, the estimate and the budget are separate documents. In KonstructIQ, the approved estimate automatically becomes the budget of record. There is no manual re-entry, meaning there is no "revenue leakage."
• The "Digital Shield" for Change Orders: Change orders are where profit is most often lost. KonstructIQ makes documenting scope changes as easy as sending a text, depersonalizing the transaction and ensuring contractors get paid for the work they actually do.
• Embedded Finance: Leveraging Irv’s banking background, KonstructIQ integrates payments directly into the workflow, automating lien waivers and accelerating the 90-day collection cycle down to days.

The Strategic "Data Moat"

A core tenant of our Investment Thesis is the creation of a data moat. KonstructIQ builds a moat that deepens with every project.

By analyzing thousands of anonymized estimates, the AI provides Predictive Intelligence. It can warn a contractor: "You are bidding $500 for waste removal, but for projects of this size in your area, the average cost is $800." This transforms the contractor from a gambler into an investor in their own projects, turning "institutional knowledge" into empirical fact.

 

Why We Invested

We invested in KonstructIQ because:

The Team: Irv and Leo are rare "repeat founders" who combine deep product vision with the operational rigor required to digitize Main Street.

The Market: The "productivity gap" in the built world is an existential threat that can only be solved by a data-fueled system.

The Thesis: KonstructIQ is a quintessential "System Builder," architecting a proprietary dataset that will become more valuable with every passing day.

At Morado Ventures, we believe in backing the architects of the future. KonstructIQ is building the system for the builders, and we are proud to partner with them once again as they construct the next generation of the built world.