LOS ANGELES, June 22, 2023 — Hypar, the world’s first cloud-based design automation platform for buildings, is announcing a $5.5 million Series A round led by Brick & Mortar Ventures with participation from Building Ventures. With support for every phase of project realization, Hypar delivers the world’s building expertise to realize better buildings and help teams make better decisions, faster.
“BIM has been a buzzword in the construction industry for decades now,” says Alice Leung, VP of Platform & Product Strategy at Brick & Mortar Ventures. “There have been challenges in its adoption and Hypar is here to change that – it’s a step change in how we are designing and generating 3D assets.”
Hypar’s founders, Ian Keough and Anthony Hauck, have decades of experience in creating digital building solutions. Ian developed goBIM, the first BIM visualization application for iOS, which was later acquired by Vela Systems. He then invented Dynamo, a widely popular visual programming language for Revit.
After twenty years in architectural and construction practice, Anthony Hauck held positions at Autodesk as the AEC Director of Product Management and Director of Product Strategy for Autodesk’s AEC Generative Design Group, where, with Ian, he led the team that created Generative Design for Revit.
After leaving Autodesk in late 2017, and through conversations with hundreds of design and construction firms, Keough and Hauck recognized a need for access to repeatable, scalable building expertise.
“For centuries, buildings have started on a blank page, as if no one had ever built anything before,” says co-founder Anthony Hauck. “We automate best practices so that projects don’t have to start from scratch.”
Adds co-founder Ian Keough, “For too long, we’ve had fragile automation workflows in AEC strung together with various softwares. Hypar provides the platform to deliver scalable building expertise to support the industry’s transition toward buildings as a product. On Hypar anyone, anywhere, can build collaborative applications leveraging the world’s building expertise.”
Allen Preger, Partner at Building Ventures, notes that, “From the outset, Ian and Anthony’s mission has been clear: to build the industry’s first open-source and cloud-native generative design platform. And now dozens of leading designers, builders, and suppliers use the platform to productize their building configuration and construction offerings. Having recruited an all-star team of engineers and cultivated a global network of computational designers to the growing Hypar community, Hypar is now poised for its next phase of growth.”
Bas Nolta, Global Manager Engineering Services Platform at Aliaxis, adds that, “Aliaxis believes the Hypar platform is the future of collaborative design and engineering, where highly automated processes complement human experiences towards a better and faster design.”
In addition to the main platform, the team has launched a space planning app built on Hypar that reduces time spent on commercial test fits by 90%. “After evaluating many other AEC platforms, we worked with Hypar because we saw it had the most potential to accelerate our workplace planning business,” says Jayanth Gopal, Director at Adrianse. “As the Hypar team helps us develop our custom workplace application, we’re looking to apply Hypar to our healthcare and data center businesses.”
“Quickly visualizing design options is just the beginning,” adds Hauck. “By offering rapid feedback on design performance, our customers will be able to arrive at critical decisions ahead of their competition.”
“With so much to change in the building industry, we’re delighted to continue our partnership with the Building Ventures team, and to welcome Brick & Mortar Ventures on board as investors,” concludes Ian. “Both firms bring critical industry insights that support Hypar’s vision of better buildings, faster.”
The new funding will be used to expand platform features, product lines, and go-to-market teams.
About Hypar
Hypar is the world’s first cloud-based design automation platform that enables building teams to rapidly create building design, construction, and product systems. With support for every phase of project realization, Hypar delivers the world’s building expertise to realize better buildings and help teams make better decisions, faster. Learn more about the product and sign up for a free account at hypar.io.
About Brick & Mortar Ventures
Brick & Mortar Ventures is an early stage venture fund focused on the Built World. Founded by Darren Bechtel, the firm invests in emerging companies developing innovative software and hardware solutions for the industries of architecture, engineering, construction, and facilities management. Notable past investments of the firm and its General Partner include Seed round participation in PlanGrid, BuildingConnected, BuildZoom, and Rhumbix, as well as early-stage investments in FieldWire and Levelset (formerly Zlien). Brick & Mortar Ventures is based in San Francisco, CA.
About Building Ventures
Building Ventures is the venture capital firm dedicated to supporting early-stage startups reshaping the way we design, build, operate, and experience our built environment. Learn more about the team and our portfolio companies at https://buildingventures.com/.
SOURCE Hypar
