Pitch deck — Estym8
Product context: Estym8 is built from scratch as an AI-first construction preconstruction platform—not a legacy takeoff stack with AI bolted on. AI runs across the product: bid-package ingestion and classification, multi-model takeoff and vision, plan intelligence, cross-file synthesis, Estee, estimate-to-submittal draft review, and optimization recommendations. Canonical framing: AI-first positioning.
Confidential — for discussion only · Not an offer to sell securities.
Canonical deck: this file → estym8.ai/docs/pitch-deck. For a meeting handout, open that URL in Chrome/Safari → Print → Save as PDF (enable “Background graphics”).
Estym8
Bid-ready takeoffs & plan intelligence from full plan sets and bid-package folders
Multi-trade · USA · subscription SaaS · estym8.ai · May 2026
Deal & financials at a glance
For the finance-first reader — the business case up front; product detail follows.
The ask
Seed round — targeting ~$2–3M (anchor ~$2.5M; open to ~$5M for the right lead)
Instrument
- Seed equity (priced round or SAFE) — funds a real team and 18–24 months of runway.
- Valuation, rights, and structure set with the committed lead and counsel (not pre-set here).
- Founder owns 100% today and retains majority post-round; company has no debt.
What this round funds
- A hands-on engineering leader (CTO), operations (COO), and early engineering / GTM hires.
- AI compute & calibration, paid-acquisition validation, and runway to meaningful MRR.
- A market-credible founder salary (not a majority of the raise) and key-person insurance payable to investors.
Reporting
- Monthly MRR, paying seats, churn, plus standard investor information and pro-rata rights.
Stage (honest)
- Pre-revenue / closed beta.
- v1 in production; Stripe per-seat billing + plan gating shipped; founder-led beta on real bid folders.
- Design-partner engagements in progress, including a commercial electrical-contractor beta — validated against multiple real bid folders.
Use of funds (~$2.5M · ≈ 18–24 months)
- Team (founder market salary + CTO + COO + early hires) — ~56%
- Marketing / GTM — ~12%
- AI compute (prod + calibration) — ~8%
- Product / infra — ~6%
- Reserve / contingency — ~11%
- Legal + accounting, key-person insurance, events, cost data — remainder
Illustrative projections (modeled; validated with measured cohorts post-raise):
| Month 6 | Month 12 | Month 18 | Month 24 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paying seats | ~30 | ~100 | ~185 | ~300 |
| MRR | ~$5.1K | ~$17K | ~$31K | ~$51K |
Deeper diligence: team, org/scaling plan, cap-table and round detail, churn/payback tables, and unit economics in the investor fundraise brief (shared under NDA); market sizing + sensitivity in the valuation framework.
The problem
- Commercial preconstruction = manual counting, retyped notes, and plan QA across dozens of files per pursuit.
- Bid deadlines and loaded labor ($50–80+/hr) mean missed bids and thin margin when counts or RFIs are wrong.
- Whole bid folders are normal; most tools still behave like one PDF, one trade.
Who we serve
- Estimators & preconstruction leads on subcontractor and GC teams — commercial, institutional, multi-family (USA first).
- Subs bidding to GCs and GC in-house estimators pricing from design-team plan sets (architect + engineering firms) — self-perform, owner bids, buy-out, and sub validation.
- Multi-trade pursuits on one product spine; deepest calibration MEP-forward today, expanding vertical depth on customer sets.
- Not small one-off residential remodel as primary ICP.
What Estym8 delivers
| You bring | You get |
|---|---|
| One PDF or entire bid folder | Classified files, run plan, completed estimates |
| Drawing PDFs | Counts, materials, raceway/wire, concerns, draft RFIs |
| Full package | Verbatim sheet harvest, code-edition alerts, cross-file intelligence, narrative report |
| Priced estimate | Export + GC read-only link; submittal path (evolving) |
One product for single-sheet and folder uploads — not two SKUs.
Product flow
- Project → upload PDF or folder (plans & docs)
- Analyze → plan → execute (discipline bundles where needed)
- Review harvest, conflicts, RFIs, cross-file findings, narrative report
- Export PDF / Excel / CSV · Estee run-grounded Q&A
Typical run: tens of minutes for substantial sets (varies by size & job count).
Why we win
- Whole bid package — not a single-discipline point tool
- Traceability — claims tied to what’s printed on the sheets
- Cross-file intelligence after folder completion — coordination & RFI seeds
- Bid-bucket reconciliation vs schedule/printed totals where supported
- Speed — days of manual work → same-day iteration
- Continuous QC — ground-truth library, user feedback, regression as models change
We are not underpricing vs value — below legacy enterprise, above simple counters.
Honest scope (trust)
- Richest automation today: MEP-forward calibration & ground-truth regression
- Other trades share the same folder pipeline; depth follows roadmap & customer sets
- Submittal / spec AI: review assist — not compliance sign-off
- RFI drafts: user sends through their project process; Estym8 does not track architect responses today
Competitive context (pricing)
| Alternative | Typical cost | Estym8 |
|---|---|---|
| In-house labor | $320–2,800+ / plan set | Fraction of labor; hours → minutes |
| Outsourced takeoff | $150–400+ / project | Subscription; in-house control |
| PlanSwift / Countfire | ~$99–167 / mo | Premium vs point tools; folder-native |
| Trimble-class enterprise | $1,000s+/seat | 10×+ lower entry; AI-native workflow |
Business model & pricing (seat-based)
- B2B subscription (Stripe) · per seat · USA
- Meter completed estimate runs / month (single PDF = 1 run; multi-discipline folder = multiple runs)
- Annual billing: 15% discount · Overage: $35 / additional completed run
| Tier | Seats | Monthly | Runs / mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | 1 | $179 | 8–10 |
| Studio | 2–5 | $149/seat (from $298/mo) | 12/seat pooled |
| Firm | 6–15 | $129/seat | 15/seat pooled |
| Enterprise | 16+ | Custom | SLA + onboarding |
ROI anchor: one saved estimator day ≈ $320–500 → one bid pays for the month.
Unit economics (planning)
| Metric | Target |
|---|---|
| ARPS (avg revenue/seat) | ~$165–175 blended (Y1) |
| CAC | <$900 (paid + content + demo) |
| Payback | < 8 months |
| Gross margin | Track AI COGS per run; improve with scale & caching |
ARPA = revenue per account; ARPS = revenue per seat.
Go-to-market (USA)
Primary growth lever post-raise: paid acquisition — untested at scale today; budget and funnel modeled below, then validated with $5–10K initial tests before full ramp.
- Paid social & search — Meta, Google, LinkedIn (~$75→$200/day over 6–9 months; ~$70K from raise)
- Live demo for qualified leads (Calendly) — convert ad traffic that needs trust on bid folders
- Communities & content — r/estimators, LinkedIn precon (supporting, not primary volume)
- Lead magnets — bid-folder QA checklist, RFI-from-plans guides
- Associations & events — NECA, MCAA, SMACNA, AGC (as budget allows)
Ads are acquisition spend, not product revenue. Subscriptions + overage runs are the revenue model.
Conversion model (Year 1 — conservative, illustrative)
Assumes paid traffic at scale — rates are planning assumptions until first ad cohorts run.
Per ~1,000 site visits / month:
| Stage | Rate | Result |
|---|---|---|
| → Sign up | 6% | 60 |
| → Verified | 55% | 33 |
| → Demo / call | 30% | 10 |
| → Paid (30d) | ~25% of trial path | ~2 new accounts/mo |
At 2K visits/mo → ~4–6 new accounts/mo → path to 80–120 seats @ month 12 with ~$70K ad spend in use-of-funds.
Growth plan (illustrative)
Blended ~$170/seat/mo · churn modeled 5% → 3% over 3 years
| Month | Paying seats | MRR |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | 30 | ~$5K |
| 12 | 100 | ~$17K |
| 18 | 185 | ~$31K |
| 24 | 300 | ~$51K |
Replace with actuals as traction arrives.
Traction
- Stage: v1 in production; pre-revenue / closed beta — Stripe per-seat billing and plan gating shipped
- Product: Bid-package folder pipeline live (classify → AI project overview → run plan → multi-discipline execute); single-PDF path; exports; GC read-only view; estimate-to-submittal GA-track
- Calibration: Ground-truth plan-set regression library; Jonas GC commercial bid folders in automated compare pipeline
- Go-to-market: Design-partner engagements in progress (incl. a commercial electrical-contractor beta) on real pursuit folders; paid acquisition planned post-raise
Roadmap (financing enables)
- Trade vertical depth on the shipped folder spine (concrete, structural, utilities, cross-discipline consistency)
- Licensed cost data (RSMeans-class) post-rights
- Submittal workflow depth (catalog, compliance exports, spec review)
- Self-serve checkout & team admin at scale
No fixed public dates — phased delivery driven by customer sets and regression quality.
Milestones this financing enables
- Month 6: 30+ paying seats · self-serve checkout live · demo funnel + walkthrough video shipped
- Month 12: 100+ seats · ~$17K MRR · RSMeans integrated · trade depth v1
- Month 18: 185+ seats · ~$31K MRR · annual contracts 35%+ of base
Bodi (portfolio — not in this raise)
- Bodi = ICT / low-voltage Basis of Design from sources → claims
- Same founder, 100% owned — separate from Estym8 and not part of this raise
- Natural integration path: Estym8 plan intelligence → Bodi claims (roadmap)
Ownership & structure
- Estym8 equity — 100% founder-owned today; founder retains majority after a seed round.
- Estym8 debt — None.
- Instrument — Seed equity (priced round or SAFE). Round size, valuation, option pool, and investor rights set with the committed lead and counsel (not pre-set here).
- Team — operating team (CTO, COO) + advisory board forming; key-person insurance payable to investors planned.
- Reporting — Monthly MRR, seats, churn; standard information and pro-rata rights.
The ask — seed round (~$2–3M, anchor ~$2.5M)
Funds the team + runway to scale; founder retains majority.
Use of funds (~$2.5M · ≈ 18–24 months):
- Team — founder market salary + CTO + COO + early eng/GTM hires — ~56%
- Marketing / GTM (+ product walkthrough video) — ~12%
- AI compute & calibration — ~8%
- Product & infra — ~6%
- Reserve / contingency — ~11%
- Legal & accounting, key-person insurance, events, RSMeans / data — remainder
Estym8 has no corporate debt. Founder salary is a market-credible figure — not a majority of the raise.
Investor return & upside (equity)
- Equity upside in an AI-native preconstruction platform serving a large, labor-constrained market.
- Return via future priced rounds, secondary, or acquisition — construction-tech strategics value bundled precon + ICT (Estym8 + Bodi optionality).
- Pro-rata rights to maintain ownership in later rounds.
- A non-dilutive revenue-share structure remains available for an angel who prefers it — discussed privately, not the primary ask.
Team
Shannon Horn — Founder & CEO
- 20+ years as designer, developer, and founder — AI-native products from UX through production code
- Founder: Estym8 (commercial plan-set preconstruction), Bodi (ICT project brain), MEOS (massage-school OS)
- Portfolio & background: shannonahorn.com
- Contact: shannon@estym8.ai
Operating team & advisory board (forming, June 2026): a hands-on engineering leader (CTO), operations/COO, and senior technology and construction-domain advisors — names and bios available under NDA in the data room. A key-person insurance policy (payable to investors) is planned.
Hiring post-raise: engineering, GTM, and customer success tied to MRR milestones.
Materials for diligence & next meeting
- This deck (PDF) — Print estym8.ai/docs/pitch-deck → Save as PDF, or share the live URL
- 60–90s product walkthrough video — In production — funded in marketing line item; available on request / with second meeting
- Live demo — Calendly / screen-share on a real bid folder
- Written diligence — Investor overview · Valuation · Competitors · Folder workflow · Pricing
- Definitive seed financing docs (SAFE or priced equity) — Counsel to draft after term alignment — legal budgeted in use of funds
Legal
This deck is for discussion only. Forward-looking statements are plans, not guarantees. Market, conversion, and return illustrations are hypothetical. Not investment, tax, or legal advice. Not an offer to sell securities — consult qualified counsel before any transaction.
Estym8 has no corporate debt. Founder personal obligations disclosed in use-of-funds narrative only.
Questions: Shannon Horn · shannon@estym8.ai · shannonahorn.com