What Shovels does

Shovels is an AI-powered building permit and contractor intelligence platform founded in 2022 and headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area (Lafayette, California). The company ingests fragmented, unstructured building permit data from 1,800+ U.S. jurisdictions and applies a multi-layer AI pipeline (pattern matching, semantic similarity, and entity extraction using LLMs) to classify permits into 22 categories and generate plain-English descriptions. Its database now spans 130M+ permits, 2.3M+ contractor records, and — following the January 2026 ReZone acquisition — ~200K government meeting decisions across 600+ cities, which the company describes as uniquely unified with permit data to provide months of lead time before permits are filed. In April 2026, Shovels transitioned to a fully owned data pipeline, removing all third-party provider dependencies and gaining end-to-end control over data quality and refresh cycles.

Shovels monetizes primarily through recurring subscriptions across four channels: Shovels Online (a self-serve web application), a REST API with per-key rate limiting, an agent-friendly CLI tool, and an Enterprise Data License (EDL) that delivers parquet files or private table shares into Snowflake, BigQuery, and Databricks. Pricing spans a free tier with rate-limited access, a $599/month self-serve subscription (as of February 2025), and custom-priced enterprise contracts. Distribution extends through OEM/embedded integrations with Esri Living Atlas, Autodesk Construction Cloud, Precisely Data Link, Regrid, Cherre, and Clay. The company serves six primary verticals: Building Materials & Equipment Suppliers, Construction Technology, Energy & Climate, Home Services, Real Estate, and Telecommunications, with named customers including Schneider Electric, TopBuild, Angi, Pearl, and Rewiring America alongside a long tail of climate and proptech startups.

The company has raised approximately $6.5M in total funding across two seed rounds ($1.07M in May 2023 and a $5M round led by Base10 Partners in June 2025). Revenue reportedly tripled during the mid-2025 period, and headcount expanded from 6 to 11 employees. Operational footprint includes a Lafayette, CA address of record and a newer Concord, CA co-working office (opened May 2026). The company achieved SOC 2 Type 2 certification in April 2026 (clean opinion, audited by Zero Day CPA), which removes a procurement barrier for Fortune 1000 enterprise buyers. Charlie AI, an LLM-based natural-language research agent, and the Decisions API beta represent the company's most recent product surface extensions.

Name

Shovels

Legal name

Shovels, Inc.

Website

https://shovels.ai

Company type

Private

Founded year

2022

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Shovels provides AI-powered building permit and contractor intelligence across 1,800+ U.S. jurisdictions, serving building materials suppliers, construction tech, energy/climate, home services, real estate, and telecom clients via API, web app, CLI, and data warehouse integrations.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Construction Data & Analytics

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821), Directory and Mailing List Publishers (513140)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

OCR, ICR & Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (BPAAAKAB)

akta.pro secondary industry

Environmental Data Management Platforms (EHS/EMS, LIMS, ELN, Compliance Data Hubs) (EUAHAKAA)

Keywords

• Building permit data
• Contractor intelligence
• Construction analytics platform
• AI permit classification
• Government decision data

Headquarters

HQ city

Lafayette

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Subscription - Shovels Online: Self-serve web application subscription for exploring and downloading building permit, contractor, and local government decision data. Single or multiple seats available.
2. API Access: Programmatic API access for automation and integration with CRMs, custom web apps, and other applications. Rate-limited per key at 120 requests per 60 seconds.
3. Enterprise Data License (EDL): Database access via parquet files or private table shares into Snowflake, BigQuery, or Databricks for large organizations.
4. Audiences: Targeted homeowner, resident, and B2B audiences for marketing campaigns using permit-derived intelligence.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels6 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Shovels operates an AI-powered building permit and contractor intelligence platform that ingests fragmented municipal permit records and government meeting documents, classifies them using large language models, and delivers them as structured, queryable data. Customers access the data through a self-serve web application, REST API, CLI tool, or enterprise data feeds loaded directly into cloud data warehouses, with verticalized solutions for building materials suppliers, construction technology, energy and climate, home services, real estate, and telecommunications.

Product overview

Shovels is an AI-powered building insights platform offering building permit and contractor intelligence for the built world. The product portfolio includes a core web application (Shovels Online), REST API, CLI tool, and enterprise Database Access delivery to Snowflake/BigQuery/Databricks. AI-powered features include Charlie AI for natural language permit queries, Shovels Decisions for government meeting intelligence (acquired via ReZone), GIS integration for spatial analysis, and Audience targeting for marketing. Data coverage spans 144M+ building permits, 2.7M+ contractors, and 1,800+ jurisdictions across the US, with new Decisions coverage across 600+ cities. The company operates a fully-owned data pipeline after transitioning from third-party providers.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Shovels Decisions: A zoning and land-use data product covering decisions, rezonings, and variances from city council and planning meetings, available in beta across 600+ cities and 200K records.
• Charlie AI
• Shovels Online
• Shovels CLI

Products and services

• Shovels Online Self-serve web application for exploring and downloading building permit, contractor, and local government decision data. Sold via single or multiple seat subscriptions with rate limits and CSV export up to 1,000 rows.
• Shovels API REST API providing programmatic access to building permits and contractor data, supporting lookup by address, contractor name, license number, or geographic ID, with per-key rate limiting at 120 requests per 60 seconds.
• Shovels CLI Agent-first command-line tool for developers and AI agents to query permits, contractors, and addresses directly from the terminal. One binary, zero config, JSON output, credit-exempt.
• Database Access (Enterprise Data License) Enterprise data delivery providing parquet files or private table shares directly into Snowflake, Databricks, or BigQuery for large organizations, with biweekly full snapshot releases from Shovels' fully owned data pipeline.
• Charlie AI AI research agent that searches millions of building permits and contractor records using natural language queries, removing the need for SQL or complex query syntax.
• Shovels Decisions Zoning and land-use decisions data product tracking city council and planning commission approvals, rezonings, and variances across 600+ cities, providing early-stage development intelligence months before permits are filed.
• Shovels GIS Geographic information system offering enabling exploration of Shovels permit data in GIS software including QGIS and ArcGIS, and distributed via Esri Living Atlas of the World.
• Shovels Audiences Marketing audience offering enabling customers to reach high-signal homeowner, resident, and B2B audiences for marketing campaigns using permit-derived intelligence.
• Nationwide Contractor State License File Comprehensive dataset covering 1.8 million contractors across 37 states with standardized classifications, verification capabilities, and integrated contact information for fraud detection and entity resolution.

Quantifiable outcome

• 20-30% higher response rates for customer outreach campaigns
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers12 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles6 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration11 records

AI capability9 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.

• ReZonecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 7 January 2025Acquired AI startup tracking local government meeting decisions. Makes Shovels the only company to unify meeting records with permit data, enabling customers to track development projects from initial proposal through final occupancy. ReZone founders Daniel Heller and Brad Hargreaves joined as advisors.
• PreciselymajorTechnology or IntegrationJoined Precisely's Data Link partner program, connecting 150M+ address-resolved U.S. building permits to Precisely's authoritative location, property, demographic, boundary, and risk datasets via persistent identifiers.
• RegridmajorTechnology or IntegrationStrategic partnership integrating parcel data with building permit information. Regrid's unique parcel identifiers enable seamless joining of parcel and permit datasets for enhanced site selection, market analysis, and risk assessment.
• CherremajorTechnology or IntegrationPartnership combining construction insights with investment processes to improve real estate decision making for portfolio management.
• Autodesk Construction CloudmajorTechnology or IntegrationOfficial integration partnership enabling ACC users to access nationwide permit data, track jurisdiction timelines, and identify development projects directly within their existing workflow.
• WattCarbonminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership supporting electrification efforts through contractor search platform and EAC (Energy Attribute Certificate) Marketplace.
• Deep SyncminorGTM or Marketing PartnerMarketing partnership announced in July 2024.

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Direct peers

• BuildZoom: BuildZoom aggregates building permit data across the US to help homeowners find contractors and to provide market intelligence. Directly comparable to Shovels in product (permit database, contractor profiles) and target buyers (construction/building materials, home services).
• LightBox: LightBox provides commercial real estate data and intelligence, including property, environmental, and permitting information. Comparable as a CRE-focused data aggregator competing for the same enterprise data licensing dollars (REITs, lenders, brokers) that Shovels targets with its permit intelligence.
• Regrid: Regrid is a US parcel data and property intelligence platform. Direct peer in the property/built-environment data space; Shovels already has a strategic partnership with Regrid to join parcel and permit datasets, indicating overlapping customer bases and complementary offerings.
• Cherre: Cherre is a real estate data and analytics platform that consolidates property data for institutional investors and asset managers. Shovels has a formal partnership with Cherre to combine construction insights with CRE workflows, indicating directly comparable end-customers and overlapping enterprise sales motion.

Broad incumbents

• ATTOM Data: ATTOM aggregates nationwide property, parcel, ownership, and real-estate-related data for enterprise customers. Broader incumbent offering overlapping datasets (property attributes, permits) to similar enterprise buyers (title, mortgage, insurance, investors) that Shovels also targets with building permit intelligence.
• CoreLogic (ICE Mortgage Technology): CoreLogic, now part of Intercontinental Exchange, provides large-scale property data and analytics across mortgage, insurance, and real estate. Broad incumbent with overlapping coverage of property attributes and adjacent datasets, competing for the same enterprise data-buying segments.
• CoStar Group: CoStar is the dominant commercial real estate data and analytics platform (CoStar, LoopNet, Apartments.com). Broad incumbent competing for enterprise CRE intelligence budgets; if CoStar expanded into building permits it would directly threaten Shovels' real estate vertical.
• Autodesk Construction Cloud: Autodesk Construction Cloud is a broad construction project management and BIM platform. Shovels has an official integration partnership with Autodesk to surface permit data inside ACC; Autodesk is both a channel partner and a potential broad incumbent competing for construction workflow dollars.

Emerging players

• HouseCanary: HouseCanary provides residential real estate valuation and analytics using national property data. Comparable as a property-intelligence platform serving enterprise buyers (lenders, investors, proptech), though HouseCanary focuses more on valuation than permit-derived GTM intelligence.

Others

• Precisely: Precisely is a data integrity and location intelligence platform. Shovels joined Precisely's Data Link partner program, linking its permits to Precisely's location/property/risk datasets. Precisely is both a partner and adjacent ecosystem player in the enterprise data infrastructure Shovels sells into.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/shovelsai
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/shovels

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles10 records

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors3 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A1 record

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Shovels