LightTable, a proptech startup applying AI to pre-construction peer review, has closed $6 million in seed funding, led by Primary Venture Partners with participation from Innovation Endeavors and Banter Capital. Founded in October 2024 by Paul Zeckser (CEO), Dan Becker (CTO), and Ben Waters, this funding marks a pivotal moment as they build what Innovation Endeavors calls an “AI-native operating system for pre-construction.”

Solving a Massive, Hidden Cost in Real Estate Development

In pre-construction - from scoping to design reviews - errors and coordination mistakes contribute to over $500 billion annually in rework globally. Traditional peer-review methods can take 3-6 weeks and still leave critical issues unchecked.

LightTable’s AI platform ingests PDFs of architectural plans, specifications, and MEP diagrams, completing thorough reviews in just 10–45 minutes. It identifies - and prioritizes - potential conflicts in constructability, accessibility, and fire safety, uncovering 4× more issues and reducing coordination errors by up to 70%.

What makes LightTable’s rise so compelling isn’t just the tech, but the choice of battleground. The team didn’t set out to build another broad “AI for construction” platform, which would have been too diffuse. Instead, they zoomed in on one overlooked choke point - peer review. By solving a step that everyone hates but no one had automated, they built a wedge into a massive market. And here’s where the ultra-valuable insight for founders lies: don’t chase markets where the pain is loudest, chase the ones where the waste is silent. The loudest problems often attract crowded competition. But the quiet inefficiencies - the ones costing time and money in ways people have simply “accepted as the norm” - are often more lucrative and defensible. By addressing the silent inefficiency of document review, LightTable has turned an industry bottleneck into a launchpad for broader adoption.

Backing with Purpose

Primary Venture Partners, known for backing early-stage innovators, spearheaded the round, while Innovation Endeavors - founded by Eric Schmidt - brings strategic capital aligned with transformative infrastructure technologies. Banter Capital rounds out the syndicate, offering additional operational insights and support.

Domain Expertise at the Core

LightTable isn’t a generic AI tool. The founding team blends deep architecture/construction domain knowledge (Ben Waters) with real AI product and engineering expertise (Dan Becker), anchored by product and industry leadership (Paul Zeckser). Innovation Endeavors emphasized this blend as essential for building lasting solutions in complex ecosystems like AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction).

Real-World Traction & Roadmap

Already, LightTable has engaged with top-tier developers through pilots - among them Mill Creek Residential Trust - showing real-world validation. One VP of construction praised how the AI “found mistakes in seconds that outside experts spent weeks looking for.”

With the new capital, the team will scale its product engineering, deepen domain expertise by partnering with seasoned architects and general contractors, and strengthen go-to-market reach across the U.S.

What the Road Ahead Looks Like

LightTable is poised to become the standard coordination platform for pre-construction - an essential layer that bridges fragmented workflows, reduces risk, and accelerates timelines. Its trajectory highlights that when innovation focuses on core inefficiencies - especially in high-stakes industries - the impact multiplies fast.

By marrying AI with domain fluency and weaving into ecosystems rather than disrupting them, LightTable offers a blueprint for how startups can scale fast, responsibly, and with real impact in complex sectors.