You Should Know: Chase Gilbert

In the age of wireless communication and instant data sharing, the financing of most construction projects still moves painfully slowly. Builders request loan draws that are processed on spreadsheets while inspectors document job progress on printouts and notepads. If a builder is lucky and planned ahead far enough, that next chunk of change might arrive a week after the ask.

That won’t be the case much longer if Chase Gilbert and his colleagues at Built Technologies get their way. The company’s software — the product of a “What’s your biggest frustration?” conversation between Gilbert and local entrepreneurs Andrew and Scott Sohr — automates and speeds up those steps, giving all participants in the building process a real-time look into the funding and construction pipelines. The goal: Faster funding, more insightful risk management and better cost controls.