Shackleton raises $5M led by Battery Ventures
We think construction projects should be able to largely manage themselves. Not in a science-fiction way, but in the way the best tools in our everyday lives already work: they see what's coming, handle the follow-up and bring a person in only when there's a real decision to make.
When we ran a GC, a normal week for one of our project managers looked nothing like that. The work that should have run on its own was the work that filled their days. We built Shackleton so the next generation of builders and owners doesn't have to operate that way, with AI agents working alongside their teams from site selection to turnover.
Today we're taking the next step toward that future.
What we're announcing
Shackleton is the agentic operating system for development and construction. It unifies development and construction management workflows in a single platform and deploys AI agents to automate administrative project work.
Today Shackleton manages over $1 billion in project value across more than 15 states, for midsize general contractors in multifamily, industrial and commercial construction, as well as multi-location brands including Red Lobster, Dog Haus and Pepper Lunch.
We're also announcing a $5 million seed round led by Battery Ventures, with participation from Brick & Mortar Ventures, Trust Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Motivate Partners, Thayer Investment Partners, Act One Ventures, Brainstorm Ventures, Silence VC and others. We'll use it to expand the workflows our AI agents can manage and to accelerate our go-to-market efforts.
The operational drag slowing modern construction
For many construction teams, critical project information is spread across separate systems for bidding, documents, scheduling and finances. It's not uncommon for a company to juggle seven to 10 systems and have its teams spend 10 to 15 hours a week on data entry and administrative work.
Tariffs, higher interest rates and owners pushing for faster rollouts leave little room for that overhead. Meanwhile, legacy construction platforms were designed primarily as systems of record, leaving the follow-up to project teams.
We lived this. We grew a tech-enabled commercial general contractor to $35 million in revenue across the Southeast while fighting fragmented software the entire way. Every hour a project manager spends chasing status across disconnected tools is margin lost.
One platform for the entire construction lifecycle
Shackleton brings workflows from site selection and bidding through project turnover into a single system. AI agents handle many of the administrative tasks that consume project managers' time, including:
- Drafting RFIs
- Following up on overdue submittals
- Flagging budget variances before payment requests are submitted for approval
- Converting field notes into daily reports
Unlike point solutions that automate work within a single application, Shackleton's agents operate across the entire platform. That lets teams coordinate activities across projects and portfolios, while keeping people in control through review and approval workflows.
When everything lives in one place, projects move faster, teams spend less time on administrative work and projects cost less. With Shackleton, multi-location customers have completed buildouts up to 35% ahead of schedule and as much as 18% under budget.
Where we're headed
The goal is the one we started with: construction projects that can largely manage themselves, with the proactive, always-on assistance people are increasingly used to from consumer AI tools built into every stage of project delivery. This round helps us get there faster.
If you're running a construction company or building out locations on the owner side, we'd like to show you what that looks like on your projects. Request a demo at shackleton.ai/demo.