Build.inc New York NY — Build is headquartered in New York, New York. Build is a neofirm of autonomous AI services for the built world — real estate development and infrastructure. Its agent platform, Dougie, automates site selection, feasibility analysis, due diligence, and design development, compressing roughly four weeks of human work into about 75 minutes.
What Build builds
Build is a neofirm of autonomous AI services for the built world — real estate development and infrastructure. Its agent platform, Dougie, automates site selection, feasibility analysis, due diligence, and design development, compressing roughly four weeks of human work into about 75 minutes.
Official materials describe the product at build.inc. Our July 2026 desk review synthesized launch coverage from TechCrunch, PR Newswire, Fortune, SiliconAngle, Tech Funding News, and EIN Presswire — see dossier in data/nyc_trending_july_2026/dossiers/build-inc-nyc_sources.json.
Why Build trended in July 2026
- Raised $8.5M seed led by Index Ventures with Pebblebed (OpenAI and Meta AI Research co-founders), Sarah Friar (OpenAI CFO), and John Stecher (Blackstone CTO) as angels.
- Completed 150+ projects across 18 countries for Fortune 500, hyperscalers, and governments managing more than $2T in assets collectively.
- Founder James Stirrat-Ellis is an architect who left Harvard, worked on Singapore Changi Airport expansion ($13B), and taught himself to program.
- Tripled booked revenue since April 2026; contracts start in six figures.
- Coined the category term agentic real estate.
Funding and investors
Reported funding: $8.5M seed (2026)
Investors / partners: Index Ventures, Pebblebed, Puzzle Ventures, Sarah Friar, John Stecher
Round sizes and investor lists change quickly during 2026’s compressed funding cycles. Treat figures as point-in-time from July 2026 press; confirm with primary sources before investment or vendor decisions.
Leadership
Named founders / leaders: James Stirrat-Ellis (CEO) and Ben McClusky (co-founder)
Why New York
New York remains the global capital for institutional real estate — Blackstone, Brookfield, and dozens of REITs maintain headquarters or major offices in Manhattan. Build’s NYC base places Dougie adjacent to the asset owners and developers who run feasibility on Hudson Yards-scale parcels, borough rezonings, and infrastructure adjacency studies. The city’s Department of Buildings permitting volume and mixed-use zoning complexity create demand for faster diligence than legacy consultant networks can deliver at six-figure contract minimums.
James Stirrat-Ellis’s path — architecture training, Changi-scale infrastructure exposure, self-taught engineering — mirrors how NYC development teams increasingly blend design literacy with computational workflows. Agentic real estate as a category name signals intent to replace not just document review but the orchestration layer between architects, engineers, and capital committees.
How Dougie fits the built-world workflow
Traditional real estate development chains site selection, zoning research, environmental screening, pro forma modeling,
and design development across separate consultant teams — each billing by the week. Build’s thesis is that autonomous agents
can execute structured subtasks (parcel scoring, comparables pulls, code constraint checks, massing iterations) in parallel,
returning partner-ready packages in roughly 75 minutes instead of four calendar weeks of human coordination.
Clients cited in launch materials include organizations managing more than $2 trillion in assets collectively — a signal
that Build targets institutional capital, not residential flip analysis. Contracts reportedly start in six figures, aligning
with enterprise proptech ACV norms rather than pro-sumer SaaS pricing.
The term agentic real estate distinguishes this wave from earlier “prop tech” marketplaces and CAD plugins:
the unit of value is completed diligence and design-development output, not software seats alone.
Common questions
- When did Build launch in NYC?
- Public launch June 30, 2026 Verify current status on build.inc.
- How is Build funded?
- $8.5M seed (2026) Backers and partners include Index Ventures, Pebblebed, Puzzle Ventures, Sarah Friar, John Stecher.
- Who founded Build?
- James Stirrat-Ellis (CEO) and Ben McClusky (co-founder). Confirm current leadership on LinkedIn and the company About page before partnerships.
- Where is Build headquartered?
- New York, New York, United States. Contact via the official website for office visits.
Contact
- Website: build.inc
- Headquarters: New York, New York, United States
Related: NYC trending startups July 2026 · NY founded companies hub
Last verified (desk review): July 2026 — Facts from official website and tier-1 press dossier; not an on-site audit.