Scenarium AI secures €1.6m to reimagine the building design process
- Scenarium AI automates the generation of building plans for all planning stakeholders and all planning phases
- They start by focusing on the most underserved target group in the building design process: the electrical planner
- 1.6 million Euro pre-seed financing round led by UVC Partners to double down on product development
Munich, November 15th, 2023 - The pre-seed financing round was led by UVC Partners, whose portfolio companies include Capmo (construction tech startup) and Synera (product design software). Also joining the round are, among others, Angel Invest, one of Europe’s most active angel funds, as well as the CEO of Make, Fabian Veit, LeanIX Chief People Officer Anna Gajda, and Moritz Luck, founder of Enscape (rendering software for architects).
A diminishing workforce and rising user dissatisfaction with existing software products are driving the construction industry to seek new solutions. Today, up to 50 percent of a construction project's time is dedicated only to its design phase, simply because neither workers nor tools exist to make designing buildings more efficient.
"We saw at many engineering firms firsthand the precarious situation that vacancies could not be filled for months or even years, and training for the existing workforce is not only time-consuming but also costly: sometimes even more expensive than the software to be learned," says Katja Elkhanova, co-founder and CEO of Scenarium AI.
Despite the urgency, solutions to restore lost productivity remain elusive. The software landscape has seen little change over decades, prompting industry leaders to call for more innovative software. Until now, no one has met the demands. Thus, Scenarium AI has made it its goal to meet precisely this need.
The Berlin-based company has now successfully closed its first funding round to reimagine the building design process with generative AI, raising 1.6 million Euros.
"We believe that the new developments in generative AI have made it possible to completely restructure the way planning buildings works, saving up to 69 percent of total planning time. At the same time, the recent hype around AI has turned heads even in this more traditional industry - the current willingness for adoption we see means we are timing the market just right", says Emil Azadian, co-founder and CTO of Scenarium AI.
Their claims align with a recent study by Goldman Sachs, which estimates that the Architecture and Engineering sector has the third-highest automation potential due to recent developments in generative AI.
Scenarium AI's vision is to build the AI-powered design software the construction industry is asking for - for all planners and all planning steps. With over 37 million potential users worldwide, that amounts to a trillion-dollar market opportunity.
"We see a clear market opportunity, based on high user dissatisfaction with incumbent solutions and new technologies to automate major steps in the building design process. Talking to players in the market made it very clear that the market is ripe for disruption. Katja and Emil impressed us with their commercial and technical expertise, and combined with the right product focus, made us want to partner with them", says Alexander Kiltz, Principal at UVC Partners.
Their first funding will be instrumental in building a holistic product for the electric trade. The company has ambitious plans for growth, including expanding its team of world-class deep learning engineers and data scientists to accelerate the development of its AI-driven solutions and win more paying customers.
About Scenarium AI
Scenarium AI is building the AI-powered design software the construction industry is asking for - for all planners and all planning steps. It generates collision-free, completely norm-conform, and material-efficient design suggestions in minutes instead of weeks. The company was founded in 2023 by Katja Elkhanova and Emil Azadian.
With their family backgrounds in construction, both founders have been familiar with the industry's challenges. Before starting Scenarium AI, Katja Elkhanova helped to build Cosuno, a construction tech startup digitizing the management of subcontractors, where she was leading the demand generation efforts. Emil Azadian built deep learning algorithms and synthetic datasets at the AI company Audatic, helping to achieve a successful exit. The two founders met at Entrepreneur First - Europe's leading talent investor.
Learn more at www.scenarium.ai
About UVC Partners:
UVC Partners is a leading Munich- and Berlin-based early-stage venture capital firm that invests in European B2B tech start-ups from pre-seed to series A. With about €400 million assets under management, UVC Partners typically invests between €500,000 and €10 million initially and up to €30 million per company. The portfolio includes category leaders in deep tech, climate tech, hard- and software, and mobility with various technologies and business models. As an independent partner of UnternehmerTUM, Europe's most extensive innovation and startup center, UVC Partners has access to proprietary deal flow, an industrial network of more than 1,000 corporates, and access to talent from the leading European technical university. The investments include Flix, Vimcar, planqc, Tanso, Isar Aerospace, TWAICE, DeepDrive, STABL, and many more. They all benefit from the team's extensive investment and exit experience, their ability to build sustainable category leaders with a competitive advantage, and their passion for growing the game changers of tomorrow.
Learn more at www.uvcpartners.com
