Illoca, an AI-native design engine, has successfully closed a $13 million Seed financing round, led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The significant investment coincides with the launch of the company's inaugural product, "Illoca Tracing Paper™," designed to revolutionize architectural design workflows. The announcement was made by co-founder Chin-Yi Cheng, signaling a new era for architects burdened by traditional software limitations.
The $13 million Seed round saw participation from prominent investors including AIX Ventures, Root Ventures, and Alt Ventures, alongside Bessemer. This capital infusion is earmarked to accelerate Illoca's mission to return creative agency to architects by mitigating the "Production Tax"—an estimated 1,300 hours lost per architect annually to non-design tasks. The funding will support further product development, market expansion, and team growth.
Illoca Tracing Paper™ is positioned as the first intelligent interface for architectural design, replacing conventional multi-button toolsets with a collaborative, AI-powered canvas. It enables architects to translate sketches, markups, and natural language directly into editable 2D and 3D designs in real-time. This innovation aims to streamline the design process, allowing for more fluid exploration and refinement of ideas.
"Today, we’re launching illoca Tracing Paper and announcing our $13M Seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners," Chin-Yi Cheng stated in the tweet, further elaborating on the product's capabilities. Cheng, who pioneered generative AI for design at Google DeepMind and Autodesk AI Lab, co-founded Illoca with Chiaowei Yu, who previously led the BIM team at Tesla.
Bessemer Venture Partners' lead investment underscores confidence in Illoca's potential to disrupt the $12 trillion global construction industry. Maha Malik, Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners, highlighted the founders' deep technical expertise and empathy for architects' work. Early partners, such as Kajima Corporation, are already leveraging Tracing Paper to accelerate iteration and achieve superior design outcomes, with their Chief Architect Yasuhiro Nakano noting its ability to preserve architectural intent at speed.
