Story

I'm Moritz. Business Informatics at TU Berlin, previously at UnitPlus and Nexenio. I've always built software. But I didn't know who for.

In spring 2024, Tim Martin told me about his company Techcrafts. A construction business drowning in spreadsheets and ancient ERP systems. Every quote: hours of copying, calculating, formatting. Same thing every time. Painful every time.

Tim hired me as a freelancer to build a simple calculation app. We called it Calculaid. I thought it would be a small project. I was wrong.

By summer, the first version was running at Techcrafts. For the first time, I saw how tradespeople actually work. And for the first time, I understood how little I knew about their world.

The biggest challenge wasn't the code. It was the language. Tradespeople talk about their work differently than developers do. They think in trades, line items, and bills of quantities. I had to learn their language before I could build them software.

In summer 2025, the first interested Business Angel appeared. For the first time, someone from outside said: this could be something. That gave the idea real momentum — and led us to the HPI Engine Incubator.

In October 2025, Nikias Deike and I were accepted into HPI Engine Incubator Batch #5 at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam.

We renamed the project. Kraft. Because that's exactly what we want to give tradespeople: the power to focus on their actual work. Not on paperwork.

In the incubator, we experimented, tested hypotheses, and learned a lot. The vision grew: not just a calculation app, but an operating system for construction.

Then came the VC Challenger Day, the launch of automatic calculation, and many customer conversations. Most of them frustrating. Not because the product was bad. But because I hadn't yet understood how tradespeople make decisions.

And then Nikias had to leave the project for personal reasons. That was hard. But it forced me to push Kraft forward on my own. And it showed me that I truly want this.

In January 2026, we launched K.OS. The first AI project manager for construction. At the HPI Demo Day, we showed what's possible: fully automated quote calculation.

In February, the automated calculation prototype arrived. And David Assheuer as our first employee. Business Informatics student at TU Berlin, fast and AI-native.

Today we are three. Moritz, Tim, and David. 15 companies use Kraft. Zero revenue. But for the first time, I feel like we're building something the construction industry truly needs.

Kraft will become the AI project manager for construction. One that reads tenders, calculates costs, writes proposals, and understands the entire project lifecycle.

I believe the best tradespeople in the world deserve better tools. Not more software. Better intelligence. And that's exactly what we're building.