ConstructConnect
ConstructConnect is a construction information and software company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, that supplies project data, industry news and economic forecasts to the North American building industry. Formed in 2016 by uniting four established construction information brands, iSqFt, Construction Market Data, BidClerk and Construction Data Company, it operates as a business unit of Roper Technologies and describes its mission in a single line, Construction Starts Here, helping the construction industry start every project on a solid foundation. For contractors deciding which projects to pursue, manufacturers deciding where demand is moving, and analysts measuring the health of construction, ConstructConnect's data and forecasts are working infrastructure.
The company sits at the intersection of news service, database provider and software company. It tracks construction projects through the preconstruction phase, connects the participants who bid and build them, and publishes the starts data and forecasts that trade media, economists and industry leaders use to describe where construction is heading. That combination is why ConstructConnect belongs in a directory of news and information agencies as well as in any list of construction technology firms.
Formed in 2016 From Four Legacy Brands
ConstructConnect was launched on May 12, 2016, as the combination of four legacy businesses, BidClerk, Construction Data Company, Construction Market Data, known as CMD, and iSqFt. The merger had been assembled through transactions reported in 2015, including the combination of Warburg-backed CMD with Genstar-backed iSqFt, and it brought together companies whose individual histories in construction project reporting stretched back decades. Construction Data Company, for example, had built its own position through acquisitions such as BidTool and through expanding its plans and specifications services state by state, before becoming part of the combined group in 2016.
The logic of the combination was data depth and geographic coverage. Each legacy firm had regional strengths and its own project-reporting network. United, ConstructConnect said at launch, the four businesses created an ability to capture, leverage and distribute relevant information through easy-to-use technology, offering the deepest and most geo-targeted data and customized analytics in the commercial construction industry. President and chief executive Dave Conway framed the brand around an industry truth in the launch announcement, in order to construct, one must first connect, and the new company's purpose was to empower customers with access to relevant information through technology that was easy to use.
Headquarters in Cincinnati and a North American Network
ConstructConnect is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, at 3825 Edwards Road, Suite 800, with eight other offices in the United States and Canada in its company descriptions. Cincinnati was the home base of iSqFt, one of the combining companies, and the combined business kept the city as its center, placing it in a Midwestern hub with a strong construction and building-products presence rather than on either coast. Company listings place its workforce in the hundreds, with some profiles citing more than 900 employees across its operations, reflecting a business that combines field project reporting, data operations, software development, economics and customer support.
Ownership places ConstructConnect inside a much larger technology group. It operates as a business unit of Roper Technologies, traded on Nasdaq as ROP and described by the company as a constituent of the Nasdaq 100, the S&P 500 and the Fortune 1000. Roper's portfolio model, acquiring and operating niche software and information businesses, suits a company whose value lies in proprietary data and workflow software for a specific vertical market rather than in general consumer reach.
The Preconstruction Network: Who It Connects
ConstructConnect describes itself as a collaborative network for the preconstruction phase, the period before building begins in which projects are designed, documented, bid and awarded. It is designed to bring together general contractors, subcontractors, design professionals and building product manufacturers, helping each group make connections faster and find the information they need. For general contractors, that means discovering projects that fit their capacity and markets. For subcontractors, it means being invited to bid on the right work. For manufacturers, it means knowing which projects specify, or could specify, their products while decisions can still be influenced.
The company's current product language emphasizes that same flow. ConstructConnect Project Intelligence helps users find the right projects and judge quickly whether they fit their business, including an Ask Documents feature that lets users ask plain-language questions of project documents and receive answers pulled directly from plans and specifications, including change orders. Once a project looks like a fit, its takeoff and estimating tools, including Takeoff BOOST, which uses artificial intelligence to build a first measurement pass that estimators then review for scope and price, move the user from discovery toward a confident bid. The aim throughout is a shorter path from information to decision.
Project Data as a News Product
The foundation under the software is reporting. Construction project data is gathered, verified and structured by people and systems that track projects from early planning through bidding, across commercial, institutional, industrial and civil categories and across regions. That database is what makes ConstructConnect a news source as well as a software vendor. Its project leads are, in effect, the earliest news of what will be built, where, at what scale and by whom, delivered to subscribers who can act on it commercially.
The company organizes that intelligence in its Insight suite, through which customers access project data, analytics and market views, save and export analyses, and track historical and emerging trends. Insight Forecast is a dedicated add-on covering 34 project types nationwide and by region, giving users tools to analyze market trends and plan ahead with monthly starts data and quarterly forecast reports from the company's economics team, including the ability to create custom geographic areas to monitor sales performance. For a building product manufacturer managing a sales territory or a contractor weighing entry into a new market, that regional, type-by-type structure is the difference between an interesting statistic and a planning tool.
Economics, Starts Data and Forecasts
ConstructConnect's economics operation is its most public face. The company publishes construction starts reporting and forecast packages, including quarterly Construction Starts Forecast reports and a five-year Put-in-Place Construction Forecast created in partnership with Oxford Economics. The Fall 2024 Put-in-Place release, for example, forecast work-in-progress payments across 18 types of construction spanning residential, commercial and industrial, and infrastructure categories, and assessed themes including the normalization of manufacturing construction after a boom in starts, and a strong outlook for civil engineering led by power infrastructure and communications.
Chief Economist Michael Guckes, who brings 20 years of economics experience spanning civil construction, manufacturing and financial services, is the public voice of that work, presenting ConstructConnect's outlook alongside peer forecasters at industry events such as Engineering News-Record's construction forecast programs. In the Fall 2024 outlook, Guckes tied the industry's prospects to the combined expectations of falling interest rates, slowing wage growth and only modest movements in construction materials prices, noting that lower rates would relieve pressure on commercial real estate owners and developers that had built since rates rose in response to inflation in early 2022. Starts tables in its forecast packages rank the largest project starts by location, type, square footage and dollar value, citing projects from hospitals to power plants to airport programs, with ConstructConnect Insight as the source of actuals and Oxford Economics as a forecast partner.
Why Starts Data Matters Beyond Subscribers
Construction starts are a leading indicator, not a lagging one. A start recorded today becomes employment, materials orders and economic activity over the following months and years, which is why ConstructConnect's data is watched by audiences beyond its direct customers, including trade journalists, regional planners, suppliers setting production, and financial analysts modeling building-products demand. Its Canadian coverage extends the same method across provinces and regions, with starts reported in Canadian dollars by province and by type of structure, making the company a North American, not only United States, construction information source.
The company reinforces that public role through its news and blog publishing, including analysis of industry surveys and technology trends, such as its reporting on how software providers measure artificial intelligence outcomes in project delivery, and practical guidance comparing takeoff and estimating tools. That publishing keeps the data business connected to the daily concerns of its users, estimating accuracy, bid volume, risk and productivity, rather than treating forecasts as abstract economics.
Software, Artificial Intelligence and the Estimating Workflow
ConstructConnect's recent product development shows where preconstruction software is heading. Its guidance on artificial intelligence in estimating stresses human review, AI builds the first pass of a takeoff and the estimator reviews scope and price before anything goes out, and it argues that the measurable value of AI is time returned at the bid stage, time that can be spent judging whether a job is worth chasing and what risks it carries. Its Project Intelligence and Takeoff BOOST tools are designed to work together in that sequence, moving a user from discovering and screening a project, including asking plain-language questions of its documents, to detailed measurements and counts without starting over. The company applies the same evidence standard to itself that it recommends to buyers, asking how any AI tool shortens the path from an emerging risk to an actionable signal to a measurable result.
Place in Construction Information
ConstructConnect's formation in 2016 consolidated a fragmented field. Before the merger, a contractor or manufacturer often needed several regional services to see the whole project landscape. After it, a single Cincinnati-based network could offer project data, bidding connections, takeoff software and national forecasts under one brand, backed by Roper Technologies. Competitors remain, including other major construction data and software providers, but ConstructConnect's combination of legacy reporting depth, an economics team whose forecasts are presented beside academic and trade peers, and a preconstruction workflow that runs from discovery to bid, gives it a distinctive position. Construction Starts Here is a slogan, but it is also an accurate description of where, for many North American building businesses, the working day and the industry's own statistics begin.
