Shovels, a Lafayette, CA-based AI-powered building permit platform, has raised $5 million in seed funding.
Investors
The round was led by Base10 Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage companies leveraging automation in traditional industries. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Base10 invests in fintech, foodtech, logistics, retail, and health sectors. The firm operates globally, including in regions such as the USA, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Shovels Use of Funds
The company will use the funds to grow its team, enhance its AI infrastructure, expand data coverage, and build advanced analytics and platform development tools.
About Shovels
Founded in 2022 by Ryan Buckley and Luka Kacil, Shovels is an AI-powered building permit intelligence platform that transforms fragmented local government data into actionable business insights. The company has built a proprietary AI-powered infrastructure to automate data extraction, enrichment, and classification across this fragmented landscape. It processes over 170 million building permits across 30 million U.S. addresses from over 20,000 jurisdictions. Headquartered in Lafayette, California, Shovels serves customers across the construction industry value chain, ranging from early-stage startups to publicly traded companies.
Funding Details
Company: Shovels, Inc.
Raised: $5.0M
Round: Seed
Funding Date: June 2025
Lead Investor: Base10 Partners
Additional Investors:
Company Website: https://shovels.ai/
Software Category: Construction Intelligence / GovTech / AI Data Infrastructure
Source: https://www.shovels.ai/blog/shovels-raises-5m-seed-round-to-scale-ai-powered-building-permit-platform/