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Legman: Bringing AI to the Construction Industry

Legman is a participant in Cohort 3 of Transform, a data science and AI startup accelerator powered by Deep Tech Ventures at the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Innovation in collaboration with the Data Science Institute.


The construction industry might not be the first that comes to mind when you think about AI, but for Legman, that’s exactly why it presents the perfect opportunity.

Using a blend of computer vision, multimodal transformers, and large language models, Legman aims to address the barrier to growth in the construction space, which often includes mundane, repeatable, time-consuming office tasks during the pre-construction processes. These tedious tasks are currently done by a person, which is expensive and often wasteful as much of the work needs to be done before a project is guaranteed.

By leveraging AI, Legman aims to simplify many of these processes, reducing risk and cost.

“We believe that AI tools available have finally allowed a path forward to automate the mundane, repeatable processes that take place during pre-construction,” said cofounder and CTO Mark Dabler. “Legman is using a blend of computer vision, multimodal transformers, and large language models to complete these tasks.”

In addition to Dabler, Legman is also led by cofounder and CEO Dan Shaw. Shaw brings more than 10 years of commercial elevator sales experience, where he handled everything from the full sales cycle to corporate CRM implementation and strategy rollout.

Dabler has a computer science degree with a focus on AI from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Throughout his career, Dabler has made significant contributions to startups and agencies, focusing primarily on AI technologies.

Thus far, the team has received positive feedback from its first users.

“The feedback is general excitement,” said Shaw. “The biggest hurdle we will have is gaining trust, as these workflows can be nuanced. The market understands, however, that with this type of technology, it’s get with it or get out of the way.”

As part of Transform, the team hopes to gain mentorship from professors, diversity of thought from students and their fellow cohort, access to investors and customers through the University of Chicago, and long-lasting, meaningful relationships.

Over the next year, they expect to continue to add use cases and expand from preconstruction workflows into project management and closeout activities.

// Powered by the Polsky Center’s Deep Tech Ventures, Transform provides full-spectrum support for the startups accepted into the accelerator, including access to business and technical training, industry mentorship, venture capital connections, and funding opportunities.

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