TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Augmenta, the company automating building design for the construction industry, today announced it has raised US$11.75 million in a seed extension round that will be used to commercialize the company’s groundbreaking design platform for the construction industry. The investment was led by Eclipse with participation from Hazelview Ventures, BDC Capital’s Deep Tech Venture Fund, and Suffolk Technologies. The investment brings Augmenta’s total funds raised to date to US$15.85 million.
With the funds raised in this seed extension, Augmenta plans to double its team over the next nine months across engineering, sales, and support. Augmenta will also use the investment to build on the momentum that the company has achieved to date. This includes implementing commercial pilots with several electrical engineering firms that are currently participating in Augmenta’s formalized feedback program.
Augmenta is on track to commercialize the Electrical System Design (ESD) module of its groundbreaking Augmenta Construction Platform (ACP) in Q1 2024. The ESD module generates fully constructible, code-compliant designs of electrical raceway routing for electrical engineers and contractors. The company is also planning to expand into adjacent markets with the development of plumbing and mechanical modules.
Augmenta is solving a critical problem in the construction industry
In the construction industry today, legacy tools and processes used for designing complex building systems like electrical, plumbing, and HVAC make it extremely difficult and time consuming to ensure designs are feasible for construction. Time and resource pressures lead to errors that require significant rework, slowing down both design and construction, and substantially increasing risk, uncertainty, and costs for contractors and engineers – and in turn real estate developers and owners.
At a time when the industry continues to face talent and material shortages, pressure mounts due to the inherent complexity of building design. Augmenta is providing innovative new technology to solve these challenges. Through its technology platform, Augmenta automates the entire design process for contractors and engineers, ensuring the designs they create are error-free, constructible, and optimized according to client needs. These designs are created in minutes to hours instead of weeks to months.
“Our vision is to completely disrupt an element of the construction industry that has remained largely unchanged for decades,” said Francesco Iorio, CEO of Augmenta. “Building on the success of the ESD beta program that is currently underway, we are very well positioned to scale these initial tests as pilots and begin generating revenue as we prepare for our expansion into adjacent markets.”
Augmenta was recently recognized as a Top 50 Preconstruction Future Disruptor by BuiltWorlds and named in CB Insights’ 2023 AI 100 list of the world’s most promising AI startups, in addition to receiving a strong level of interest from the industry at large through its Augmenta Feedback Community. The Augmenta Feedback Community gives strategic industry partners, as well as forward thinking engineering firms and contractors, access to early builds of Augmenta’s software and the opportunity to guide its product development. Augmenta has a waitlist of almost 30 companies that have applied to participate in this beta program and will expand participation through the end of 2023.
“The construction industry has yet to reap the productivity, scalability, and sustainability benefits of advanced technology other industries have been transformed by,” said Charly Mwangi, Partner at Eclipse. “Using generative AI coupled with a world-class technical team, Augmenta’s design platform will completely turn the construction industry on its head.” Concurrent with the investment in Augmenta, Mwangi will join the Augmenta Board of Directors.
“Since our initial investment in Augmenta last year, we remain confident that its construction platform is an industry changing technology,” said Roger Poirier, co-founder of Hazelview Ventures. “This follow-on investment further reinforces our commitment to the company, and we look forward to our continued work with Francesco and his incredible team.”
“Design is a significant area of opportunity for construction efficiency improvements,” said Wan Li Zhu, co-founder and Managing Director of Suffolk Technologies. “By investing in and partnering with Augmenta to apply breakthrough AI to assist skilled building designers and engineers, we will reduce costs and accelerate the delivery of construction projects across the industry.”
About Augmenta
Founded by pioneers of Generative Design at Autodesk, Augmenta is a software company that is disrupting and driving a new level of efficiency for the construction industry by automating building design. The company’s flagship Augmenta Construction Platform (ACP) significantly accelerates the time it takes to detail and estimate designs, eliminates costly redesign and rework, and reduces overall risk. It also ensures buildings are designed to be energy efficient, use sustainable materials, are safer to build, and contribute less waste to landfill during construction. Once available commercially, this innovative new cloud-based platform – which uses artificial intelligence, including machine learning and mathematical optimization – will enable contractors and engineers to create error-free, constructible, code-compliant designs of buildings and systems in hours instead of weeks. For additional information, visit augmenta.ai.
About Eclipse
With ~$4 billion in assets under management, over 80 portfolio companies, and a team of investors with deep operating expertise in technology, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, healthcare and consumer products, Eclipse is a leading U.S. venture capital firm. Its leadership team has the experience necessary to create and scale complex operations. Eclipse partners with exceptional companies that make physical industries more efficient, resilient, and profitable. For more information, visit www.eclipse.vc.
