SBCA Innovation Grant Spotlight: Crowdbuild
Originally Published by: SBCA — September 8, 2026
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The 2026 SBCA Innovation Grant has four recipients, and SBCA is excited to spotlight each one leading up to BCMC in Columbus, Ohio, where attendees can see these innovations firsthand.
This week’s Innovation Grant Recipient Spotlight features Crowdbuild™. 
Crowdbuild™ was founded in 2024 but builds on nearly a decade of technology-development experience in component manufacturing and residential construction.
Crowdbuild™ was selected as a 2026 SBCA Innovation Grant recipient for its CB Quote™, which brings automated 4D and 5D intelligence to residential construction documents. The innovation is powered by AIM‑E™, Crowdbuild™’s domain-specific building-intelligence engine for AEC. AIM‑E™ interprets architectural and structural PDFs and turns them into structured building information. CB Quote™ then uses that foundation to generate model-based material takeoffs and estimates and connect them with sequencing, labor, cost, and procurement workflows.
“A takeoff is only one use of the information in a plan,” explains Nouran Ghaly, Product Owner at Crowdbuild™. “AIM‑E interprets the drawings into structured building information, and CB Quote carries that foundation into quantities, sequencing, labor, and cost. That’s what 4D and 5D mean for us: adding useful dimensions to the same project model instead of rebuilding the information for each step.”
As part of CB Suite™, CB Quote™ connects design, estimating, configuration, scheduling, and purchasing in one workflow. This helps component manufacturers and builders spend less time recreating project information and makes consistent, model-derived information available earlier when teams design, quote, and plan work.
“We believe the industry gets more value when software doesn’t have to recreate the same building at every step,” says Basil Elway, Founder and CEO of Crowdbuild™. “AIM‑E is designed to interpret the plans once, create structured building intelligence, and make that information usable by the specialized tools CMs and builders already rely on.”
Crowdbuild™ previously received an SBCA Innovation Grant in 2024 for TwinBuild LVM, which applied advanced vision models to whole-house quantity takeoffs. Being selected again gives the company an opportunity to demonstrate how its technology has progressed from automated takeoffs toward bringing 4D and 5D information into the component manufacturing workflow.
“Receiving a second SBCA Innovation Grant gives us an opportunity to show the industry how the technology has progressed,” Nouran says.
Crowdbuild™ is also looking forward to gathering feedback from component manufacturers at BCMC and learning where information breaks down between different parts of their processes.
“CMs know where information breaks down between one part of the process and the next, and that feedback is essential to building something that fits the way the industry actually works,” says Nouran. “It’s important to keep a finger on the pulse when it comes to growing a meaningful product that can seamlessly integrate into the industry, and BCMC is a huge part of that.”
Crowdbuild™ will be featured alongside the other recipients on the BCMC show floor’s Innovation Alley at Booth 208. The People’s Choice Innovator will be voted on throughout BCMC week and announced during the Industry Celebration on Thursday, September 17.
Learn more about Crowdbuild™.