Zebel means smart and agile. We have developed a technology that helps our customers make smart decisions quickly. We are a team of construction and software development professionals. We have lived in different countries, worked in different industries, experienced small and large companies, startups and well-established corporations. We have seen The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and have set out to build a different kind of company that gets better everyday with happy customers, and proud employees.
Why Zebel?
CUSTOMERS ARE OUR PARTNERS
Our customers are pioneers of adopting our technology and sponsors of our cause to make a long lasting impact in the industry. We are committed to develop and grow a close relationship with our customers, continuously seek feedback and input to improve our products.
PEOPLE ARE THE COMPANY ITSELF
Unlike the common business practices, we do not downgrade our high performance employees to “our most valuable assets” but offer them a path to become owners of the company they dedicate their professional life to build.
A BETTER VERSION OF OURSELVES
We aspire to beat our strongest competition, “our current version”, and become a better version of ourselves everyday. We seek innovators with inquisitive minds to join our team and keep the startup spirit alive.
Our Team
Hamid grew up in the construction industry by learning the trade in his family’s real estate development business ever since highschool. He has pursued a technology-oriented education and professional life in the past 15 years. Hamid has worked on a wide array of project types from retail to infrastructure to multifamily. He led the adoption of different technologies, including BIM, 3D laser scanning, and data analytics in his previous roles at EnTech, a Civil Engineering consulting firm in New York City, and Western National Group, a large vertically integrated multifamily development firm in Irvine, CA.
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Hamid received a Master of Business Administration from Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania, earned a Master of Science in Construction Management and an Engineer degree in Construction Information Technology both from University of Southern California, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Shiraz University.
HAMID HAJIAN
CO-FOUNDER & CEO
HAMID HAJIAN
CO-FOUNDER & CEO
Tito has worked in a variety of academic and professional fields ranging from Metallurgical Process Engineer, Project Management in SaaS as well as in Construction. He was involved in enterprise software development as a Product Manager for 4 years, followed by 3 years at Western National Group as a Pre-Construction Manager. This diverse background has provided a wealth of experience that has proven invaluable within Pre-Construction work, and leveraging customer data in innovative ways to best suit their needs.
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Tito received a Bachelor of Science degree in Materials Science & Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
TITO MORALES
CUSTOMER SUCESS MANAGER
TITO MORALES
CUSTOMER SUCCESS MANAGER
Chris is the Vice President of Pre-Construction at Western National Contractors, a large vertically integrated multifamily development company, based in Irvine, CA and an advisor to Zebel. He is responsible for overseeing all aspects of pre-construction operations at Western National Contractors. Leveraging his 15 years of construction experience he leads the pre-construction group to budgets from early acquisitions through design completion. He collaborates with the construction group on budget management, procurement, historical cost maintenance, project scheduling and logistics. He also directs the integration of new technologies such as building information modeling.
Chris received a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of California - Irvine. He currently serves on the board of Innovative Housing Opportunities as Vice-Chair of the Project Review Committee. Mr. Kennedy is a Licensed General Contractor.
CHRIS KENNEDY
ADVISOR
CHRIS KENNEDY
ADVISOR
Ramtin has a great passion for building resilient, secure and scalable software applications and has been following it in his career over the past 17 years. He builds the technology stack and leads the software development team at Zebel. In his previous professional life, Ramtin architected and built several microservices, the customer-facing API platform, and the main web application of Zesty.ai, a prominent Insure-Tech startup in the SF Bay Area. He also worked on enterprise software frameworks and libraries development for industrial data collections systems at OSIsoft for many years.
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Ramtin earned a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from Arizona State University and received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Shiraz University.
RAMTIN KERMANI
CO-FOUNDER & CTO
RAMTIN KERMANI
CO-FOUNDER & CTO
Tyson is a senior software developer based in Orillia, Canada. For the past several years, Tyson has been building products for the following industries: healthcare, eCommerce, education and media.
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Tyson earned a Computer Information Systems degree from Pfeiffer University in North Carolina while playing NCAA golf.
TYSON LOUTH
PRINCIPAL ENGINEER
TYSON LOUTH
PRINCIPAL ENGINEER
Jeff Pickett is a passionate evangelist for companies in whose missions he believes. By day, he works as Director, Growth Marketing for Sikka, a SaaS company optimizing retail healthcare. By night, he is a devoted husband and father of three, avid investor and advisor to Zebel and EVmatch, a charging infrastructure platform. Born and raised in Portland, OR, Jeff earned his undergraduate degree – with honors – from Yale, an MFA in film production from USC, and, most recently, an MBA at Wharton's San Francisco campus, graduating with the highest academic distinction of Palmer Scholar.
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Jeff has been a resident of California for over 20 years and is a lover of art, cycling and cuisine, all of which can be enjoyed in abundance in the state.
JEFF PICKETT
ADVISOR
JEFF PICKETT
ADVISOR
Jose takes pride and has an unparalleled passion for building accurate and reliable budgets. Not only was he influential with his groundbreaking ideas in the creation of the quick estimating platform but is also the 1st user of Zebel. His symbiotic relationship with the platform allowed him to generate hundreds of budgets during his time at Western National Group and catalyze a vast array of novel functionalities. His ability to extract project metric & cost data in the most precise, efficient manner has taken estimating to another level. He incessantly leverages client data in creative ways to best suit their needs, while continually striving for continual improvement and innovation.
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Jose has worked in a variety of professional fields in construction and project management. Jose received a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
JOSE SOTELO
DIRECTOR OF CLIENT SERVICES
JOSE SOTELO
DIRECTOR OF CLIENT SERVICES
Martí is a senior UI/UX designer based in New York. For the past several years, Martí's been designing digital products for the following industries: banking, hospitality, fashion, healthcare, pharmaceutical, automotive, and software.
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His past clients include Hewlett-Packard, Hilton Hotels, Deutsche Bank, Seat, Grifols, Asics, The Ritz-Carlton Group, Al Rajhi Bank, First Abu Dhabi Bank, and Northeastern University.
MARTI BRUNO
SENIOR UI/UX DESIGNER
MARTI BRUNO
SENIOR UI/UX DESIGNER
Chris founded Cherry Tree Capital Partners in 2021 after an 18-year career at the Irvine Company, where he served as President of the Apartments Division. Chris leverages his vast knowledge of commercial and multifamily real estate, and capital market relationships to provide the strategic direction for Cherry Tree.
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With more than 30 years of proven experience, Chris has led the strategic reinvestment, asset management, segmentation strategy, capital allocation, acquisitions, and dispositions for the existing 62,000-unit portfolio. Chris also presided over the fastest period of growth in the company’s history by also adding 22,000 new multifamily units to Irvine Company’s portfolio in his role overseeing acquisitions, due diligence, entitlements, product development, design, and delivery.
CHRIS MARSH
ADVISOR
CHRIS MARSH
ADVISOR
What Our Clients Say
Having the ability to pull current cost data right from our Procore budgets and import that data into Zebel is very powerful. We can now use fresh numbers in minutes to produce conceptual estimates on the latest deals. The days of relying on Excel and hoping formula errors didn't skew the numbers are over.
GERRY HUERTA
VP of Construction
