Avoca closed $125M+ across Seed, A, and B at a $1B valuation today, with Meritech and General Catalyst leading Series B and Kleiner Perkins on the A. The company already runs AI agents handling inbound calls, SMS, dispatch, and estimate follow-up for 800+ HVAC, plumbing, roofing, and electrical shops — including Goettl, Turnpoint, and 1-800-GOT-JUNK — and is on track to book $1B in jobs this year. If your CSR misses a call at 7:42pm tonight, the shop on the next street with Avoca answered it, booked it, and is on the schedule for tomorrow. Audit your after-hours answer rate this week.
DOL launched National Apprenticeship Week today, running April 27 through May 2 with the theme "Making America Skilled Again." Daily themes include AI in Registered Apprenticeship (April 29) and Youth Pathways (May 1), and the Department of War — the country's largest sponsor of Registered Apprenticeships at 118,000 active-duty members — just opened its first civilian Registered Apprenticeship program in cybersecurity. If you've been thinking about adding an apprentice slot, this is the week your local Workforce Investment Board is fielding the most matchmaking calls of the year — and the federal cost-share match is still on the table.
ICE Raids Are Gutting Chicago Construction Crews — Day Rates and Timelines Are Snapping (~4 min read)
Federal immigration enforcement has thinned crews across Chicago over the spring, with day rates at hiring sites cratering to $50 (from a typical $150) as raids cleared workers, while contractors west of I-355 report running leaner crews on overtime. About 32.5% of the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro's construction workforce — roughly 83,500 workers — is foreign-born, and FWD.us projects up to $8.7B in annual regional economic loss if enforcement continues. Even if your W-2 crew is clean, the framers, drywallers, and roofers ahead of you on new-construction jobs aren't — pad your rough-in and top-out windows another 2–3 weeks for any Chicagoland work scheduled June through Labor Day.
The FAR Council Just Started Stuffing an Anti-DEI Clause Into Every New Federal Contract Over $15K (~5 min read)
Implementation of EO 14398 began Friday, April 24: contracting officers must now insert the new "Addressing DEI Discrimination" clause into all new solicitations and resulting federal contracts above the $15,000 micro-purchase threshold, including commercial product and service contracts. Existing contracts get bilateral modifications by July 24, and refusal to agree can trigger termination for convenience. If you sub on federal building, military housing, GSA, or VA jobs — or you're chasing one — your standard subcontract language just changed. Read the new flowdown clause before your next signature; talk to your construction attorney before May 1 if you've got a federal bid open.
The 13th annual National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction runs May 4–8, with three new technical bulletins on the "Recognize, Respond and Respect" theme aimed at high-energy hazards. Falls drove 389 of the 1,034 construction fatalities in 2024 and remain OSHA's top-cited standard. With the Heat NEP also live and condenser swap season starting, this is the cheapest week of the year to document fall-protection training and harness inspections — paper file cost: $0; six-figure willful citation avoided when an inspector shows up: priceless.
A North Hills, CA contractor today rolled out commercial multi-meter electrical, panel, EV charger, and plumbing service for LA apartment buildings and HOAs after stacking electrical and plumbing licenses earlier this year. The pitch to property managers: one truck, one PO, one COI for tenant improvement work that used to require two contractors. In dense markets with aging multi-family stock and insurance-driven panel upgrades, the shops carrying both an electrical and a plumbing license are starting to win the bids your single-license shop never gets called on. If you're a single-trade in a metro full of 30+ year-old condos, talk to your state board about a journey-level cross-license — or partner with a complementary shop and split the COI now.
📊 Stat of the Day: $1 billion — the volume of jobs Avoca's AI agents will book for HVAC, plumbing, roofing, and electrical shops in 2026 alone. That's the size of the inbound-call advantage already accruing to shops that automated their phones, and the reason your missed-call rate just became a P&L line item.