In recent years, well-funded startups such as Motif Systems and Arcol have brought more architect-friendly native web design tools to market. In May, another approach came from Illoca, a startup whose AI-native design engine was made to return creative agency to all designers.
Illoca closed a $13 million seed funding round in May led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from AIX Ventures, Root Ventures and Alt Ventures. Unlike other startups looking to replace authoring tools like AutoCAD and Revit with a web-based SaaS option, Illoca’s interface product is Tracing Paper, a digital interface that allows design professionals to create on a digital canvas instead of a parametric interface that requires the xy and y axes to be locked to reference planes.
“We seek to provide the experience of how natural collaboration and design iteration occurs in any architecture and construction firm,” says Chin-Yi Cheng, co-founder and CEO of Illoca with experience at Google’s Deep Mind and as a Principal Research Scientist at Autodesk. “We use tracing paper, pin, comment, iterate, express ourselves through visual communication such as sketches, diagrams, mock-ups. This is the most accurate pattern of interaction, so we want to provide that. [and] improve it, rather than adding another layer on top of the existing modeling.”
Tracing paper allows designers to use sketches, markups and natural language, while Illoca’s AI agents understand this input and generate 2D and 3D designs from it. Cheng, who co-founded the company with Chiaowei Yu, formerly Tesla’s design and virtual construction manager, emphasized that Tracing Paper is not just an architectural design tool, but an all-discipline platform, offering designers and contractors a decision-making process that values the input of the entire construction team.
“Structural design, MEP design – it’s about how much you iterate and discuss, balance and use your professional judgment to balance trade-offs,” he explains. “Our tool isn’t a button that you click and AI makes everything happen magically, but it’s a tool to improve the way you compare the tradeoffs of one approach or another.”
While it’s still early days in the adoption of browser-based design tools, Illoca has already seen adoption by companies such as Japan’s Kajima Corp., one of the world’s largest design and construction companies.
“Early-stage design exploration is where creativity is most important, but it’s also where traditional tools are most limiting,” says Yasuhiro Nakano, Kajima’s chief architect. “Illoca allows our team to iterate through multiple options… while preserving the architectural intent behind each concept.”
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