Cataracta startup building a platform to help architecture, engineering and construction firms find and win projects has raised a $3.5 million seed round from Andreessen Horowitz Speedrun, Ada Ventures and Snowball VC.
Cascade, which started in 2025, is the result of its founders, Hannia Zia and Joana Ferreira, who saw firsthand the difficulty that construction companies face with expected job security.
“My mother worked for a company that sold materials to construction companies, and my uncle built mansions in the Middle East. They’re incredible at their craft, but they just don’t have access to the right tools to work harder,” Ferreira told TechCrunch. And Zia recalled the time her father tried to start a construction business in her native Pakistan: “He just couldn’t get enough projects to support himself.”
Zia describes the current process of finding construction projects as a “constant treasure hunt,” with companies having to log into every U.S. state, city, district, county and federal agency portal. “So if you’re really good at building suspension bridges, you have to find all these opportunities at these different gates.”
Cascade aims to help architecture, construction and engineering firms on this front by tracking current and upcoming projects and then using data from past tenders to predict which developers are likely to win the deals.
Here’s how the platform works: A company signs up to the platform, and then Cascade uses artificial intelligence tools to determine which projects have the best chance of winning. It also predicts which projects will be done, using different signal and data points in US states, local districts, private contractors and federal agencies. For example, if a state announces a $100 million grant, Cascade will track which developers won the grant the last time it was announced.
“We connect that data and say to our clients, ‘Probably one of these five developers will win this recently announced grant, so start talking to them to win projects,'” Ferreira explained.
The duo applied for the a16z Speedrun last September. They said the pressure to do well on demo day and the “brilliantness” of other founders helped the company sign contracts with companies that have built JFK and La Guardia airports, Four Seasons hotels and some data centers. “Speedrun gave us visibility and a stamp of approval to close big deals,” said Zia.
The startup will use the fresh cash to go to market, host industry events and hire more engineers.
Other startups in this space include GovWin IQ and ConstructConnect, but Ferreira argues that Cascade is a bit more native to AI than those platforms.
“Every time a client wins a bid, they give feedback, so the system gets smarter and smarter. Over time, we’ll have a complete map of the industry that our AI can traverse to predict the best projects and leads for each client,” he said.
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