Finch secures €2.5 million in funding to spearhead the shift from manual to generative workflows in the AEC industry
We’re delighted to announce a €2.5 million seed round that will help us to spearhead the shift from manual to generative and data-driven workflows in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. The funding round is led by Inventure and notable angels such as Peter Neubauer (co-founder of Mapillary and Neo4j) and Emil Sjödin (co-founder of Refined).
Three years ago, my co-founder Jesper Wallgren and I were working as architects in our own studio. As architects, we were slowed down by old school, manual processes and software tools that haven’t seen much innovation over the past 20 years. We were constantly looking for software that could help us find the best option for a site, faster — but still give us the freedom architects need to design great buildings. This is a struggle that many architects know far too well.
We never found what we were looking for and after years of frustration, we decided to build it ourselves. The first version was a grasshopper plug-in, seen and liked by tens of thousands of AEC professionals globally. The excitement from our industry peers convinced us that the industry is ready for a new era of generative design, powered by graph technology that can help users face emerging challenges like climate change and an increasing population, while bending the productivity curve.
Our founding team was complete when we met Martin Kretz, a software developer with a passion for math and algorithms. The three of us started Finch in early 2020. The team has grown since then and so has the product. Finch has gone from a plug-in to a cloud-based collaboration platform that prevents costly and time-consuming errors while speeding up the early stage of a project. We believe that working together in the cloud and using generative design as a default is the future of the architecture, engineering and construction industry and it will help the whole industry move forward.
We couldn’t be more excited about the next phase. We have already onboarded strategic customers across Europe, the US, and the Middle East, including the award-winning firms Herzog & de Meuron and White Arkitekter.
Peter Leuchovius, CIO at White Arkitekter, says: “The age of computational design is here and we want to be in the forefront. By using scripting, simulations and generative tools we inform our proposals in the early stages. This allows us to make better design decisions where they are most needed and necessary to deliver sustainable architecture.”
The funding round will help us to build the next-generation design tool, empowering architects, engineers and constructors to build better cities by making more informed decisions in early-stage planning.
More than 12.000 names from AEC industry have already signed up to the waiting list for Finch’s commercial launch. Join the sign-up list here.
/Pamela, co-founder and CEO
