When Patrick Murphy first spoke with Refresh Miami about Togal.AI in 2022, artificial intelligence was still something that required a fair amount of explaining. Four years later, AI needs no introduction. And neither, increasingly, does Togal.
The Miami construction technology company now counts 97 of the 400 largest contractors in the U.S. as customers, with more than 10,000 users across 32 countries. Its database has grown to more than 32 million labeled construction plans, data that Murphy believes can push the company from automating construction estimating toward predicting how buildings will actually be built.
But Togal’s story is also a distinctly Miami one. One of the investors backing the company is Miami-based Lightning Capital, led by Managing Partner Jason Albanese. Together, the two offer a glimpse at what happens when South Florida startups can increasingly find capital, connections, and operating experience close to home.
“What so many people reference about the success of Silicon Valley is that you’ve got the whole ecosystem there,” Murphy told Refresh Miami. “You’ve got the ideas, you’ve got the funding, you’ve got the education, you’ve got people willing to support companies at all phases.”
Miami, he added, is “catching up.”
Albanese has watched that shift over five years running Lightning Capital in Miami. What stands out to him is its staying power.
“The trend line is going up and to the right. It’s not flattening,” he said, pointing to investors and tech leaders who moved or expanded into South Florida and have since increased their commitments to the region.
For Lightning, Togal represents the type of company it wants to back. Many of the firm’s general partners previously ran companies themselves, which Albanese said shapes how they evaluate founders. Lightning’s 2024 investment in Togal was based as much on Murphy and his team’s ability to execute as on the underlying technology.
That operating experience matters to Murphy, too. He argued that founders should look beyond the check when choosing investors, considering the guidance, introductions, and pattern recognition they can offer.
Meanwhile, Togal is pushing deeper into AI.
The company began by using machine learning to automate construction takeoffs, the process of measuring and quantifying materials from building plans. Its next target is prediction. With millions of labeled plans, Murphy said Togal is training models to infer details about plumbing, electrical systems, drywall, HVAC, and other elements from early-stage plans, potentially compressing months of work into minutes.
AI is accelerating Togal internally as well. Murphy estimated that more than 95% of the company’s code is now written with AI assistance, allowing the team to ship new features much faster.
For Albanese, Togal also fits a broader investment thesis: look for businesses with specialized data and technology that broad AI models cannot easily replicate. Lightning is particularly interested in what he called AI’s “ripple effects,” from construction to data center cooling and energy efficiency.
Lightning, which recently launched its $100 million Fund II, has 12 active portfolio companies, including Miami startups ML Tech, CodeComply (also co-founded by Murphy), and Overproof.
The question now is what kind of tech hub Miami ultimately becomes.
Albanese doesn’t expect another Silicon Valley. Murphy, for his part, doesn’t want one.
“Everyone’s going to have their own flavor,” Murphy said. “Not everyone needs to be the same and the best at everything.”
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