Engineering software startup CalcTree gets $3.8m in pre-seed funding

The news: Australian engineering software startup CalcTree has secured $3.8 million in pre-seed funding, with Standards Australia making its first-ever investment through its subsidiary Kungari. The funding round was led by Berlin-based venture capital firm Foundamental, with participation from Suffolk Technologies, Antler VC, and former employees of Autodesk and Bentley.

The numbers: Standards Australia invested nearly one-third of the $3.8 million pre-seed round. CalcTree's public beta, launched in 2024, has attracted users from over 110 countries, including major engineering firms such as Arup, Jacobs, Aurecon, and WSP. The platform addresses calculation errors that account for 7% of contract values in large-scale engineering projects.

The context: Founded in late 2021 by co-founders Onur Ekinci, Tim Rawling and Mahan Lamei, CalcTree has developed a SaaS calculation management platform described as "GitHub meets Notion" for the engineering sector. The platform aims to streamline engineering workflows by converting complex calculations into reusable templates, addressing issues with manual processes that are typically scattered across various software packages, Excel, code, PDFs and handwritten documents.

What they said: "Standards Australia's investment in CalcTree is significant and really exciting. The funding will help us further improve our platform and deliver improved outcomes in quality and safety around the world," said CalcTree co-founder Onur Ekinci.