Patrick Murphy was struck by how low-tech the construction industry was when he joined Coastal Construction Group in 2017.
He returned to the family business that year after serving two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives for Florida's 18th congressional district, an area that includes parts of Palm Beach County. Murphy, who led future-of-work initiatives during his political career, said he applied that mindset to Coastal Construction when he rejoined the firm as executive vice president. He wanted to use technology to improve efficiency and cut costs, and immediately zeroed in on an area he believed was in desperate need for an update: the estimating process.
"That's the biggest piece of overhead for most construction companies, especially if they're bidding on hundreds of jobs a year," Murphy said. "If you can reduce the estimating process from days to seconds through automation, you can offset some of that overhead."
That led to the creation of Togal.AI.
Murphy founded the startup in 2019 with seed funding from Coastal Construction, the Miami firm founded by his father, Thomas P. Murphy. The company uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate construction estimates, a process that includes measuring the size of a project's square footage to accurately price the cost of construction. Professionals bidding on construction jobs – such as general contractors, electricians and plumbers – are required to measure properties to create estimates for consideration, a time-consuming project that is often completed manually.
Measuring each room to create an estimate can take about two days, Murphy said. With Togal, that goes down to 10 seconds.
"This is technology that can be applied to building a barn in Nebraska or a condo in Miami Beach," Murphy said.
The construction industry is experiencing delays and labor shortages due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a trend that Murphy said is forcing the industry to innovate. The estimate process was a clear frontrunner for automation because it's a repetitive and onerous procedure.
But the construction industry as a whole still operates inefficiently, Murphy added. That can create a snowball effect: Less efficiency slows new construction, and that can lead to housing shortages.
Togal is among a wave of new property technology startups disrupting the construction and real estate industries. Venture-backed proptech companies raised $10.6 billion as of late June, according to Crunchbase data, with property management and construction tech startups winning the largest shares of funding.
Togal is officially launching in September following months of beta testing by two dozen general contractors and trade partners. Headquartered in Blue Lagoon, the company has 20 full-time employees, including a team of 12 engineers and architects.
Murphy, who challenged U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio for his seat in 2016, said he was excited to see Togal enter the market after spending two years developing the concept.
"It almost feels like that was the campaign and now we're headed to election day," he added.
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