Base10 Partners leads funding for company processing 180M+ permits every month
Lafayette, CA – June 10, 2025 – We're excited to announce that Shovels has closed a $5 million seed round led by Base10 Partners. This brings our total funding to $6.5 million and accelerates our mission to make building permit data actionable for the construction industry.
Why This Matters
We've built AI-native infrastructure to solve the construction industry's data fragmentation problem. Building permit data is scattered across 20,000+ jurisdictions nationwide, making it previously inaccessible or unusable for most companies.
Shovels has developed proprietary technology that handles the complexity of government data extraction. Our AI-powered scrapers are optimized for diverse government systems, with intelligent classification and enrichment across jurisdictions, plus continuous validation and cleansing of data streams.
What We've Built
Our platform processes 180 million building permits across 30 million US addresses. We maintain profiles on 3 million contractors and add hundreds of thousands of new permits monthly through automated extraction and enrichment.
We offer comprehensive coverage across 85% of the US population, real-time processing of new permits, contractor intelligence with detailed work histories, and multiple access points including API, web interface, and direct cloud integrations to Snowflake, BigQuery, and Databricks.
Proven Results
Our customers see measurable improvements. Beam, a construction software company, integrated our data into their lead generation process with clear results.
"Integration of Shovels data in Beam's cold outreach strategy resulted in a remarkable 20 to 30% higher likelihood of contractor engagement," according to their case study. "The periodic data updates from Shovels helped fill Beam's sales pipeline with prospects and helped the Beam team nurture awareness which subsequently transformed to consideration and high purchase intent among their target customers."
Haven, a climate tech company, provides additional validation: "Shovels has been a great partner to Haven. They've not only provided the permit data we were looking for in a timely manner, but have worked to understand our strategy so they can be a partner in achieving results rather than just a source of raw data."
Our data enables precise targeting: solar companies identify homeowners with active roofing permits for installation opportunities, home improvement retailers target major renovation projects, and government agencies access granular building trends for economic development planning.
Market Validation
"Shovels has a rare and massive opportunity to become the definitive source of truth for high-value, hard-to-access datasets at the local government level," said Rexhi Dollaku, general partner at Base10 Partners.
Our customer base spans from early-stage startups to publicly-traded companies. We recently launched the Quarterly Permit Index, tracking construction trends nationwide. The Q1 2025 report found 134,000 new construction permits issued nationally, down 7.2% from Q4 2024.
Use of Funds
The $5 million will be used to expand our team, enhance our AI infrastructure for processing government data, and accelerate coverage expansion into additional datasets beyond building permits. We're also investing in advanced analytics capabilities and platform development tools.
What's Next
We're expanding into additional government datasets beyond permits while maintaining our focus on data quality and accessibility. The construction industry represents $1.8 trillion annually and remains significantly underdigitized compared to other sectors.
Our priorities include enhanced coverage with deeper data extraction across existing markets, new data sources from additional government and regulatory datasets, advanced analytics with predictive modeling for market trends, and platform development including tools for permit portfolio management.
About the Technology
Our AI-native approach processes unstructured government data at scale. We offer multiple interfaces—API, web application, and direct data feeds to major cloud platforms—serving different customer needs and technical requirements.
We maintain transparency about our coverage and limitations, providing customers with clear understanding of data availability and quality across jurisdictions.
About Shovels
We're an AI-powered building permit intelligence platform that transforms fragmented government data into actionable business intelligence. Founded in 2022 by CEO Ryan Buckley and CTO Luka Kacil, we're based in Lafayette, California, and process over 180 million building permits. We serve customers ranging from early-stage startups to publicly-traded companies across the construction industry value chain. For more information, visit shovels.ai.
About Base10 Partners
Base10 Partners is a San Francisco-based venture capital fund that invests in companies using technology to create economic opportunity and social impact. The firm focuses on backing exceptional founders building transformative businesses that serve underrepresented communities and address large market opportunities.
Media Contact Information
Company Contact: Ryan Buckley, CEO & Co-founder Shovels Email: [media contact available upon request] Phone: [available upon request]
Investor Contact: Rexhi Dollaku, General Partner Base10 Partners Email: [contact available upon request]
For more information: Visit shovels.ai
Ready to see how building permit data can transform your business? Contact our team today.