CEMEX Ventures invests in Soil Connect
Soil Connect digitalizes excavation material management and reduces waste to landfill
CEMEX Ventures, CEMEX's Corporate Venture Capital and open innovation unit, has invested in Soil Connect – a US-based digital marketplace that aims to provide a better, faster, and cheaper way for construction professionals to transport and acquire soil, aggregates, and other building materials.
Soil Connect limits waste, as users can mitigate the need to dump excess materials in landfills, and it helps reduce carbon emissions by allowing users to transact at shorter distances.
The Soil Connect platform connects the supply and demand of soil algorithmically based on the users' proximity and needs. By digitizing the monitoring and billing tasks of land-related transactions, which have historically been carried out on paper, the marketplace facilitates transparency and helps users optimize time and costs through digital documentation (e-ticketing).
Additionally, Soil Connect reduces the amount of soil currently disposed of in landfills, which results in significant cost savings for construction professionals. This also promotes circular economy within the sector by giving a new life to materials that otherwise, would have been discarded.
Soil Connect also helps in lowering carbon emissions by reducing the transportation distance, as the platform allows users to select the desired distance within their reach to find other users with mutual interests.
The investment by CEMEX Ventures is part of CEMEX's ambition to deliver net-zero CO2 concrete globally by 2050.
Since inception, Soil Connect has acquired thousands of users who have posted over 120 million yards of materials on the marketplace, which is available in cities across the US. As part of CEMEX Ventures' investment portfolio, Soil Connect will have access to a vast network of construction professionals who will support it in its goal of expanding its foothold in the US market.
‘For any relevant actor with a view to the future of our ecosystem, it is a priority to offer a solution to the millions of tons of materials that are generated annually in demolition projects, since much of the construction materials of tomorrow come from the projects to be demolished,’ said Cristina Aparicio (pictured), head of CEMEX Ventures' investment in Soil Connect.
‘We are very excited about this agreement with the Soil Connect team, which has created a business that adds value, both to those who generate the waste and to those who need construction material, prioritizing this tool that provides agility.’
‘As a third-generation builder and developer, the most frustrating part of the job was identifying how technology was changing the rules of the game for other industries, but bypassing the soil and aggregates industry,’ said Cliff Fetner, founder and chief executive officer of Soil Connect.
‘Our mission in launching Soil Connect is not just to create a marketplace; we want to establish the first unique trading platform in the industry. Making it easy for individuals to find or dispose of materials was the critical first step, and by adding the functionality of having digital documentation, we have taken the platform to another level and integrated our goal of supporting the entire transaction, from start to finish.’
