James Stirrat-Ellis, co-founder of Build, trained as an architect and worked on the S$13 billion Changi Airport expansion. He later developed AI to speed up the due diligence process that often delays infrastructure projects worldwide.
The New York-based startup has raised $8.5 million in seed funding, led by Index Ventures. Angel investors from OpenAI, Blackstone, and Meta AI Research also joined the round.
Build has completed more than 100 projects across 15 countries and recently landed its first hyperscaler client, referring to the largest cloud and tech companies.
While working on the $13 billion Singapore airport terminal, which was built to serve 50 million passengers a year, James Stirrat-Ellis saw major problems such as lengthy consultant reports, scattered data, and slow workflows.
“I realised I either need to start my own firm or get the tech to build things faster,” he tells Tech Funding News. He left his master’s program at Harvard, taught himself to code, and helped lead a fast-growing AI company in 2024 before starting Build, an AI infrastructure company, with Ben McClusky.
