Spacemaker raises $25 million to bring AI to construction

Real estate development is an integral part of the global GDP and the industry employs hundreds of thousands of people all across the world. Its operating procedures have largely remained unchanged since the last half century, with only the duration of construction having been reduced thanks to advancements in technology. But the life cycle of a construction project has mostly remained the same with only minor improvements in project duration and little to no optimizations for efficiency. However, a Norwegian startup named Spacemaker aims to tackle that problem head-on.

Spacemaker has created an artificial intelligence based software that enables architects and urban planners make better design decisions and it has raised a whopping $25 million in Series A Round of funding led by Atomico, Northzone and property developers OBOS and NREP. The software is a one-of-a-kind development that allows architects to generate highly optimized designs for buildings and even multi-building residential and commercial complexes. It achieves this by considering numerous factors like the size of available land, required orientation to allow adequate sunlight, sufficient open spaces, environmental implications, regulatory constraints, wind speed, and so on.

Such a comprehensive tool would enable construction companies to produce designs that are not only cheaper and faster to implement, but also those that are eco-friendly and long-lasting. Building plans generated using Spacemaker’s software would be highly energy efficient by allowing just the right amount of sunlight to wash over most of the interiors and winds to flow through while reducing noise from surroundings.

Architectural firms spend months developing the most optimal plan, whereas Spacemaker’s software would do the same job in a fraction of the time usually required. It would reduce the entire time period of the whole construction life cycle of buildings. This would be an attractive feature for real estate development firms to consider.