Norwegian Startup Is Trying to Use AI to Help Your Architect
Norwegian Startup Is Trying to Use AI to Help Your Architect
(Bloomberg) -- A startup based in Oslo has been using artificial intelligence to try and cut down the time it takes for architects and developers to formulate new designs.
Spacemaker said Monday it had raised $25 million to develop its software and target new markets. The round was led by venture capital firm Atomico, with participation from Northzone. Danish property developer NREP, property developer OBOS, and U.K. real estate tech fund Round Hill Ventures also invested.
"Construction is one of the least digitized industries left next to agriculture and hunting,” said Havard Haukeland, co-founder and chief executive officer of Spacemaker.
The startup is built on the premise that construction is dominated by meetings rather than software. Spacemaker’s product lets architects and developers weigh various parameters, such as how much sunshine a building should get, the minimum noise allowed from passing traffic, and the number of rooms that could be fit within a plot.
The software will then spit out a number of possible development layouts depending on how the inputs are weighted. Rather than the architect having to spend time consulting sound and layout specialists, Spacemaker will use publicly available data, such as congestion, to show potential design schemes in a matter of hours.
Like nearly all AI startups, the company’s software is only as good as the input data, but in the Nordics, large swathes of information are publicly available. Haukeland, a former architect, said part of the capital raised will be used to obtain appropriate data sets as it expands to new markets.
The number of property startups using AI has been increasing. Dutch firm GeoPhy, backed by Index Ventures, collates satellite images, sales data and property records with crime rates, green spaces and the density of nearby independent coffee shops, to determine property valuations.
Spacemaker, which has been used by property developers including Skanska AB and AF Gruppen ASA, employs 100 people, predominately in Oslo and Boston, New York.
To contact the reporter on this story: Giles Turner in London at gturner35@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Nate Lanxon, Edwin Chan
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