# Shovels

> Shovels is an AI-powered building-permit intelligence platform that turns fragmented local-government data into a queryable source of truth on construction activity, covering more than 130 million permits across 1,800+ US jurisdictions.

- **Founded:** 2022
- **Headquarters:** Lafayette, California, United States
- **Founders:** Ryan Buckley (Co-Founder & CEO), Luka Kacil (Co-Founder & CTO)
- **Team size:** 39
- **Products:** Shovels Online, Shovels API, Database Access, Charlie AI, Audiences
- **Notable:** Closed $5M seed led by Base10 Partners in June 2025, Coverage of 130M+ permits, 2.3M+ contractors, 1,800+ jurisdictions, 5M+ new permits ingested monthly

## Products & services

- **Shovels Online** — Web app for exploring and downloading building-permit and contractor data.
- **Shovels API** — Programmatic access for CRMs, lead-gen tools and custom apps.
- **Database Access** — Parquet files and private shares to Snowflake, Databricks and BigQuery.
- **Charlie AI** — Natural-language interface for permit insights and analysis.
- **Audiences** — Targeted B2B and homeowner marketing segments built from permit signals.
- **GIS Integration** — Compatible with QGIS, ArcGIS and other geospatial tools.
- **Shovels CLI** — Agent-first command-line interface for developers and AI workflows.

## Achievements

- Closed $5M seed led by Base10 Partners in June 2025
- Coverage of 130M+ permits, 2.3M+ contractors, 1,800+ jurisdictions
- 5M+ new permits ingested monthly
- 85% US population permit-coverage
- Customer-reported 20-30% lift in contractor engagement (Beam)

## Latest updates

- **2025-06** — Raised $5M seed round led by Base10 Partners, bringing total funding to $6.5M.
- **2025** — Launched Charlie AI, a natural-language interface for permit data.
- **2025** — Released agent-first CLI for developers and AI workflows.

## Links

- Website: https://shovels.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shovels/
- GitHub: https://github.com/shovelsai

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/shovels
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-28