Volve secures $3M seed funding for
Norwegian AI firm Volve has raised $3 million to scale its construction tendering platform across Europe. The funding round was led by Skyfall Ventures.
Norwegian construction technology company Volve has raised $3 million in seed funding. The capital will be used to develop its artificial intelligence platform for construction tendering and to support a European expansion.
The funding round was led by Skyfall Ventures. It included participation from J12, Norrsken Evolve, OBOS Ventures, Antler, and StartupLab. Angel investors also joined, such as Daniel Kjørberg Siraj, the former CEO of Nordic housing and urban development company OBOS.
Founded in 2024 by Herman Smith, Abyl Ikshanov, and Alf Jørgen Dovland, Volve is headquartered in Oslo. The company builds an intelligence platform for contractors and public-sector clients. It focuses on the tendering and preconstruction phase.
The Platform's Function
The platform is designed to support commercial decisions made before construction begins. These include whether to bid for a project, how to price it, and how to assess contractual and operational risks. Construction tender teams typically work under tight deadlines while reviewing large volumes of contracts, drawings, and technical specifications.
Volve's AI analyses this documentation. It maps relationships between requirements, project scope, and potential risks. This gives teams a structured view of the information used to prepare bids. The platform also helps contractors align bids with client evaluation criteria and review offers from subcontractors.
According to the company, around 80 percent of a project's cost is determined before a contract is signed. This makes tendering and preconstruction a critical stage for determining project margins and risk.
Market Context and Ambition
Despite its importance, tendering and preconstruction remain among the less digitised parts of the construction industry. Construction represents more than €1.6 trillion in annual investment across Europe, according to data from the European Construction Industry Federation cited by the source. Construction contracts account for close to one in five public tenders.
"Construction is a project business: you have to win projects to stay in business, but winning on the wrong terms is worse than losing," said Herman Smith, co-founder and CEO of Volve. He added that project margins are shaped by commercial decisions made before construction begins, often based on thousands of pages of interconnected documentation reviewed under tight deadlines.
Volve is already used by main contractors and public clients across the Nordics. It is building its presence in the UK and Continental Europe.
Product Development and Future Plans
Alongside the funding round, Volve is rolling out a new graph-based structure for its platform. This is designed to retain and connect knowledge across projects. Although individual construction projects differ, many of the commercial decisions involved are recurring. The new structure aims to allow knowledge generated during one tender to inform subsequent bids, rather than requiring teams to start from scratch each time.
The new capital will be used to deepen Volve's product offering for main contractors and public clients. It will also accelerate the company's European expansion. Volve plans to position the platform as an intelligence layer for commercial decision-making across tendering and preconstruction.
