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Building The Google Maps of Underground Infrastructure: How 4M Analytics Turned a $42 Million Daily Problem Into Opportunity
Owen Drury
July 30, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 22 minutes
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INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
Building The Google Maps of Underground Infrastructure: How 4M Analytics Turned a $42 Million Daily Problem Into Opportunity
Picture this: 169,000 construction projects break ground across America every single day.
Each one involves 50 to 60 different entities - engineers, contractors, utility companies, municipal authorities, each of who are trying to coordinate around one massive unknown: what's buried beneath their feet.
The result? Between 8% and 15% of every construction budget gets eaten alive by utility conflicts that nobody saw coming. We're talking about a $42 million daily problem that has plagued the industry for decades.
Until now.
We recently sat down with Itzik, the founder and CEO of 4M Analytics, whose journey from Israeli Special Forces landmine clearance to building what he calls "the Google Maps of the underground" is probably one of the most fascinating founder stories we’'ve encountered on Bricks & Bytes.
What struck us, was how a small tweak in language (language market fit is real guys) made a huge difference to 4M’s trajectory.
TL;DR: The Google Maps of Underground Infrastructure
169,000 projects a day. $42M lost daily. 4M Analytics is solving it with a real-time, AI-powered map of what’s underground.
🧠 AI-native platform predicts utility lines with zero documentation, using satellite imagery, GIS data, and surface clues like manholes and poles.
🗺️ Covers 14 states (soon 22), used by AECOM, Stantec, and multiple DOTs.
📈 Enterprise traction: moving from pay-per-use to project-based SaaS with real usage and expansion.
🔥 Legacy AI, not hype: Real predictive models, real impact — no wrappers.
💥 Life-or-death mission: Itzik's background in landmine clearance fuels a vision to reduce construction risk and prevent tragedies.
4M isn’t just a mapping tool. It’s an infrastructure play with a growing data moat, high switching costs, and industry validation from the likes of Carl Bass (Autodesk) and Noam Bardin (Waze).
The Solution That's Winning Enterprise Contracts
Before we dive into Itzik's remarkable personal journey, let's talk about what 4M Analytics has built, and why major players are paying attention.
4M has created the first comprehensive, real-time database of underground utilities across the United States. Think of it as Google Maps, but instead of showing you roads and buildings, it reveals the hidden world of gas lines, water mains, electrical cables, and fiber optic networks buried beneath our cities.
Credit: 4M Analytics
The company has secured enterprise agreements with some of the biggest names in the industry. Major civil engineering firms like AECOM and Stantec are using the platform. Multiple state DOTs have signed on. The platform covers 14 states currently, with plans to expand to 22 this year.
And what’s even cooler is that 4M is a legacy AI company i.e. REAL AI, no wrappers! They're using AI to generate completely new utility line predictions based on surface features and patterns, creating utility maps where none existed before.
The numbers are equally impressive… The team has grown to 104 people, with plans to reach 120 soon.
From Explosive Ordnance to Underground Infrastructure
Itzik's path to construction tech couldn't have been more unconventional.
For ten years, he served in Israeli Special Forces, specializing in finding and disposing of buried explosives. It's expertise you don't expect to translate to civilian applications, but as Itzik puts it, "everything I did in my life led me to the opportunity to build this company."
The turning point came when he met his wife and realized he was going to be a father. "I thought I was going to become a singer-songwriter," he laughs. "But somebody needs to take care of them."
Instead of music, he channeled his military expertise into humanitarian work, building what became Israel's largest landmine clearance company. But it was during this work that he first realized the power of mapping what lies beneath the surface.
"I purchased unique excavators and prime movers and really unique frameworks. And eventually I realized that I need to build a map," Itzik explains. "I took a GIS product and realized that based on my experience, I could build some kind of multi-source data fusion engine that utilizes mostly imagery that could do time lapsing to see what happened 20, 30, 50, 60 years ago and try to predict the past."
The system worked.
The correlation between his AI predictions and actual mine locations was compelling enough that he took it to the UN's International Mine Action Standards team. "They said, 'We waited like 20 years for somebody to knock on our doors and offer something like that.'"
But then came the harsh reality of fundraising. "I spoke with hundreds, I think hundreds of investors," Itzik recalls. "The few that gave me feedback said they won't invest because I'm asking money for something that could explode and take everything they did." … lol.
The Google Search That Changed Everything
Faced with investor rejection after rejection, Itzik did what any founder does when they don't know something – he went to Google. He searched: "What can I do with technology that could see beneath the ground?"
That search led him to subsurface utility engineering and, crucially, to Jim Anspach – the co-author of the industry's standard practices and, as Itzik calls him, "the godfather."
Studying Anspach's work, Itzik learned about the traditional four-stage process for managing underground utilities: requesting data from utility owners, sending teams to trace surface features like manholes and valves, deploying geophysical tools like ground-penetrating radar, and finally using vacuum excavation trucks for precise digging.
"I said, 'Whoa, you have to do all of that before excavation or before the design phase even. Nobody centralized the database that could be ready to use, constantly updated, digital.'"
The vision crystallized: "I'm going to be building the Google Maps. I'm going to be the Google subsurface. You're going to use Google Maps to see the road and you're going to use 4M to see the below-ground world."
Building AI Before AI Was Cool
What makes 4M's technology particularly impressive is that they've been AI-native from the beginning, long before the current AI boom made it fashionable.
"We started with building like CPUs menus, started with the hybrid. The option was like five years ago," Itzik explains. "If you're going to throw a stone out of your office, you're going to meet a CEO of a tech company, but nowadays you're going to find a CEO of a tech company that uses AI. And we are really, really AI native."
In an age where we are inundated with questionable AI solutions, 4M actually walk the walk.
The technical approach is sophisticated. 4M collects data from multiple sources: construction blueprints and as-built documents, aerial and satellite imagery, municipal GIS databases, and street-level photography. They then use machine learning to identify surface features – manholes, utility poles, hydrants, valves.. etc that indicate what's buried below.
But the real breakthrough is what Itzik calls "geo-AI" – the ability to take disparate legacy sources and position them accurately in physical space with full attribution. "I could literally give you the source. And you could see the source before the manipulation, before the amalgamation."
The platform can now generate utility lines purely through AI prediction, without any supporting documentation. "We just uploaded a water main in one of the states that we opened, like generated purely by AI without any documentation in the space.
The Reality of Product-Market Fit
Getting to this point wasn't straightforward. Like many construction tech companies, 4M initially struggled with adoption. They started with a pay-as-you-go consumption model that seemed like an easy sell but didn't drive consistent usage.
"We sold pretty quickly, but they didn't use it," Itzik admits. "And to be like a really strong SaaS company, it's not just about addressing fundamental questions on a daily, weekly basis. It's about customers actually using your product."
The pivot came during a crisis. When the October 7th events in Israel led to 50 team members being called to reserve duty, 4M couldn't deliver their usual service level. But this forced innovation. One team member, working on a City of Houston project with 18 different utility mapping requests, decided to map the entire city network instead of handling projects one by one.
"That was the key sign for the real-time feasibility," Itzik says. "That was the sign to me: we are going to map states to be ready to use. You're going to instantly click on a button and you're going to reveal everything you want to see."
This led to their current model: project-based subscriptions that align with how construction actually works. Instead of charging per use, they sell packages of projects – 20-40 for smaller customers testing the waters, hundreds for established users, thousands for major DOTs.
The Technology in Action
Let me walk you through what users actually see when they log into 4M Analytics.
The interface looks deceptively simple, a map-based view that resembles Google Maps. But click on any location, and the underground world comes alive. Users can see power lines, communications cables, gas mains, sewer systems, and water infrastructure, all color-coded and layered.
What's particularly powerful is the surface feature detection. The AI has identified and catalogued hundreds of thousands of manholes, utility poles, hydrants, and other indicators. For a recent project, they found 386 manholes, 158 valves, and 140 poles in a single neighborhood, each one giving clues about what's buried below.
The cost estimation tool is where the platform really shines for business users. Instead of relying on decades of experience and gut feeling, contractors can see projected linear footage of utility conflicts, compare different route options, and generate data-backed proposals for clients.
"Back in the days, anytime somebody wants to give you a proposal of why that's going to be the cost, and he's asking you why it's such a costly proposal, you're going to say, 'you see the scars on my hand? This is like 35 years of experience,'" Itzik explains. "And nowadays you could use 4M to say, 'you know what? I don't want to argue, let's open 4M. Let me show you the complexity.'"
Building Trust in a Conservative Industry
Another aspect of 4M's approach is how they've positioned themselves not as a replacement for existing systems, but as a supplement. The traditional 811 "call before you dig" system isn't going anywhere, nor should it, in Itzik's view.
"I'm not here to replace 811. I'm here to support 811. I'm saying always call before you dig, but 4M before you call or after you call. You get to decide."
This positioning is crucial in an industry where trust is the primary currency. "The currency in this industry is trust," Itzik notes, "but how can you measure trust? Somebody told me by speed, which you used to get to make a decision. And that's what we deliver."
The platform provides speed in an industry where utility coordination traditionally takes months. Instead of submitting 811 tickets, waiting for responses from dozens of utility owners (55% of whom don't respond on time), and then sending survey crews to the field, users get instant access to comprehensive utility information.
The Scale of the Opportunity
The numbers around this market are staggering. According to the Common Ground Alliance, there are 42 million digging requests annually in the United States. Divide that by 250 working days, and you get those 169,000 daily projects mentioned at the beginning.
Each project involves dozens of stakeholders who all need the same basic information: what's buried where. It's a network effect opportunity that rivals the early days of mapping or social media.
"Think about finding ways to like a really unique programmatic ways to address that volume," Itzik says. "We've built the product from the beginning as a PLG, like as a product-led growth ready. And we're using it now as a PLS, like product-led sales."
The vision is audacious but logical: serve every one of those 169,000 daily projects with instant, accurate utility information. Make underground infrastructure as visible and accessible as surface roads.
Lessons from an Unconventional Journey
Itzik's story is really about how his military background… clearing landmines and explosive devices – translated so directly to construction challenges. Both require understanding what's hidden underground. Both involve life-and-death consequences when you get it wrong. Both demand systematic approaches to managing invisible risks.
The tragic story he shared from Lexington, Missouri drives this home. In April, a locator missed a section of gas pipeline. A telecom installer struck it during excavation. The resulting explosion killed a seven-year-old child.
"This is something I feel really connected to building something that's going to be second layer of validation in risk management where I'm coming from," Itzik reflects. "You have to do every possible effort to remain with reasonable and tolerable risk."
It's not just about construction efficiency or cost savings (though those benefits are substantial). It's about preventing disasters that destroy lives and communities
The Road Ahead
4M Analytics represents something rare in construction tech: a company that has found genuine product-market fit while addressing a massive, fundamental industry problem. The combination of Itzik's unconventional background, the team's technical sophistication, and their deep understanding of industry dynamics has created something special.
As we wrapped up our conversation, Itzik shared a perspective that stuck... When people ask him to explain what 4M has accomplished, he struggles - not because it's complicated, but because it's so foundational.
"It's like meeting Mark Zuckerberg when he just created Facebook, he got the volume, but he's not making money out of it yet. Or meeting Google search before they found the ads."
That's the thing about infrastructure plays. They often look deceptively simple on the surface while solving enormously complex problems underneath. Just like those surface features 4M's AI identifies - manholes and utility poles that seem mundane but reveal the hidden complexity below.
The construction industry is built on infrastructure. Roads, buildings, and developments all depend on the vast network of utilities buried beneath our feet. For too long, that network has been invisible, poorly documented, and poorly coordinated.
4M Analytics is making it visible. And in doing so, they're not just building a software company, they're building the foundation for how construction will work in the decades ahead.
The Bricks & Bytes Review
4M ticks a number of boxes when it comes to building a sustainable and impressive business in construction tech. Let’s outline these below:
Deceptively Simple. At first glance, 4M's platform looks like just another mapping interface – colored lines representing utilities underground. But this simplicity masks extraordinary complexity. The company aggregates data from thousands of disparate sources: construction blueprints, GIS databases, aerial imagery, and real-time surface feature detection.
What users see as a simple map represents a massive data fusion engine processing information that was previously impossible to access in one place. The best software plays often look deceptively simple – think Google's search box – while solving enormously complex problems behind the scenes.
Robust Backing. 4M has assembled an advisory board that reads like a who's who of construction technology: Carl Bass (former CEO of Autodesk), Jim Anspach (the godfather of subsurface utility engineering), Randell Iwasaki (executive director of Caltrans), and crucially, Noam Bardin, former CEO of Waze. "Noam Bardin taught me how to build a map," Itzik explains. Having Bardin's expertise is invaluable… he understands the technical challenges of mapping, the network effects, and go-to-market strategies.
Huge Competitive Moat. 4M's advantages compound over time. Every project generates more utility data, making the platform more valuable for future projects. The technical barriers to entry are enormous, competing would require building the same AI capabilities and establishing relationships with thousands of data sources across all 50 states.
They increasingly own comprehensive utility data as their proprietary asset. Once construction companies integrate 4M into workflows, switching costs become significant. As one customer noted, "The currency in this industry is trust, and you measure trust by the speed you use to make decisions."
Strong Validation. Market validation spans all three target segments: major engineering firms like AECOM and Stantec, multiple state DOTs (six paying customers expected by year-end), and utility companies. The platform covers 14 states expanding to 22 this year, with metrics showing actual adoption, not just purchases.
The progression from initial skepticism to advisory board participation by Jim Anspach represents validation from the industry's most credible source. The City of Houston mapping their entire network instead of handling individual requests demonstrates both technical capability and customer value.
Visionary Leader. Itzik's background provides unique perspective most construction tech founders lack. Ten years in Israeli Special Forces dealing with buried explosives gave direct experience with life-and-death consequences of not knowing what's underground. His military training in rapid decision-making shows in how 4M pivoted during crisis, turning constraints into breakthroughs. But he combines technical vision with industry humility: "I used the hard hat to protect myself from the sun, not from office lights." His strategy of surrounding himself with industry legends who give harsh feedback shows leadership that builds lasting companies.
Watch the full episode with Itzik Malka here👇👇👇
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