Talk to many architects, and they’ll likely tell you that Autodesk’s software, including AutoCAD and Revit, has been indispensable to their work for decades.
But despite their widespread use, Autodesk’s former co-CEO and chief product officer Amar Hanspal says that the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is using 20th century tools to design 21st century buildings. His latest startup, Motif — a company that Hanspal describes as a “next-generation design platform for buildings” — is setting out to change that. It’s now raised $46 million aid of that effort.
Hanspal is coming to the problem on the heels of a long career already in the space of AEC technology. He spent about 20 years at Autodesk, and then in 2018 he co-founded Bright Machines, a manufacturing automation company (which itself has raised signficant funding). Six years later, Hanspal left Bright Machines and was looking for his next act.
His exploration of the AEC industry revealed significant frustration among architects with existing software, which is largely not cloud-based and can take up to 45 minutes to process even simple edits.
In 2023, Hanspal teamed up with Brian Matthews, former product CTO at Autodesk, to work on Motif.
Motif’s first product won’t be ready until the first half of this year but Hanspal gave a rough picture of what it would be. He said that Motif is working on building a platform that will offer a set of cloud-native 3D computer-aided design tools that will have elements of machine learning and AI.
The $46 million that the startup has now raised is a combination of seed and Series A funding. The Series A was led by Capital G, Alphabet’s growth fund, while Redpoint Ventures led the seed round.
Capital G partner Jill Chase told TechCrunch that she was researching the software for architects before meeting Motif. She noticed that it’s a very large market with outdated products.
She wondered why existing tools still haven’t been disrupted and learned that putting 3D architecture models in the cloud is technically very difficult.
In addition to the engineering complexity, selling these tools could be challenging, Chase said. “You have to have some element of trust and relationships with big architecture firms for them to even let you in the door.”
When she met Henspal and Matthews, she immediately knew that their combined 40 years of experience in the AEC software industry will help them create a company that can take on incumbents.
As for why it is taking so long to release the first product, Henspal compared Motif’s effort to design company Figma, which was in stealth mode for three years before releasing anything.
“It’s a very big and ambitious venture that we know will take a substantial amount of effort to pull off,” Hanspal said.
Motif is not alone in trying to disrupt AEC software. Other startups in the sector include Snaptrude and Arcol.
But Hanspal is certain that Motif has the best chance of winning in this market.
“It really requires a very special team that is willing to do the hard work,” he said. “I think that’s us.”
