Dili raises $15M to automate capital-project professional services

Signals Inbox·July 30, 2026·Vertical AI

Dili raised $15 million after growing more than 500% in six months, but the bigger signal is where that growth is coming from. Its AI is already checking payroll and compliance across roughly 700 infrastructure projects, turning work that once took an entire day into a task measured in minutes. Dili is not just helping consultants work faster. It is testing whether software can absorb the professional service itself.

Q1What actually happened?

Dili officially announced a $15 million Series A led by Khosla Ventures, with Y Combinator, Allianz, Brick & Mortar Ventures, and Rebel Fund also involved. The round follows a $6.7 million seed and brings its disclosed funding to $21.7 million. Dili also says the business has grown more than 500% in six months.

Q2What does Dili actually automate?

The ugly paperwork behind large construction, energy, manufacturing, and data-center projects. Dili reads payroll files, checks whether workers received the legally required wages, tracks apprenticeship rules, finds missing documents, and prepares reports for auditors. These checks matter because federally supported projects can lose tax credits or face large fines when the records are wrong.

Q3How big is the adoption already?

Dili says it is being used across roughly 700 projects. Its website reports more than 13,800 payroll reports processed, 4.7 million labor hours tracked, and over $1 billion in project funding protected. Those are company-reported figures, but they make this more than an AI demo looking for its first real customer.

Q4Why is the speed difference important?

A manual payroll review can take more than seven hours. Dili says its system can bring that below five minutes by reading every line and only sending unusual cases to a person. That is not a small productivity boost. It can let one compliance worker oversee many more projects without building a much larger team.

Q5Is Dili replacing consultants or helping them?

Right now, both. Roughly half its projects use Dili as internal software. The other half outsource the full compliance process to Dili, much like hiring a consulting firm. That hybrid model lets Dili learn the work through services and then turn repeatable parts into software. The tension is obvious: the better the software becomes, the fewer human hours the service should need.

Q6Why is this happening now?

America is building more data centers, factories, energy projects, and other large infrastructure. Public incentives help pay for many of them, but that money arrives with wage, apprenticeship, reporting, and audit rules. More construction therefore creates more compliance work. Dili is betting that AI can scale the paperwork almost as quickly as capital scales the projects.

Q7So what should I watch next?

Watch whether customers move from Dili's managed service to its higher-margin software, and whether the system survives real government audits without expensive mistakes. If it does, Dili could become the operating layer for infrastructure compliance. More broadly, it would show how vertical AI eats professional services: start by helping experts, learn their workflow, then automate most of the billable work.