The latest round was co-led by PT1 and LEA Partners, with additional backing from Koro Capital and follow-on investment from existing investors Concept Ventures.

Founded by architectural designer and visualiser George Proud and software engineer Will Jones, Gendo’s market-leading image generation platform is able to turn 2D drawings, sketches or text prompts into intricate, realistic ‘visualisations’ in seconds, as well as add and edit details from scratch based on text prompts.

These visualisations are used by designers and architects to win competitive bids and move projects through from ideation to construction, but can be cripplingly expensive and time consuming to create. With Gendo’s browser-based solution, users can generate images instantly and tweak them to fit their exact requirements.

Since emerging from beta in July 2024, Gendo has amassed 3,600 global users and seen over 50,000 images generated across 5,000 projects. On average, users are able to download their desired visualisations just 8 minutes after starting a design, which is more than 100x faster than the time it takes to create a visualisation using existing processes.

Gendo’s growing community of users join the ranks of leading practices including Zaha Hadid Architects, KPF, David Chipperfield Architects, and Benoy, who embraced the AI platform during beta.

The team is also today announcing the appointment of Patrik Schumacher, principal of Zaha Hadid Architects, as Advisor to the company. Patrik has been leading the world-renowned firm since Zaha Hadid’s passing in 2016. He is a pivotal figure in the worlds of architecture and design and an early adopter of AI within practice. As Advisor, he will help shape Gendo’s go-to-market and enterprise product, ensuring that it’s the best-in-class, go-to AI platform for professional architects and designers.

George Proud, CEO and Co-Founder at Gendo, comments: “It’s been a whirlwind since we launched the platform and announced our pre-seed funding in July. Our community of designers and architects has rapidly grown and we’re now proud to have over 3,600 users generating tens of thousands of images. We are huge believers in bespoke Generative AI tools that are designed for specific use-cases – the reception to Gendo has been a huge validator of that belief.

“It’s brilliant to welcome PT1, LEA Partners and Koro Capital to the Gendo journey. All have deep sector expertise and immense value to offer. And we are thrilled that Concept has doubled down on their commitment to us and our vision. This new tranche of investment will allow us to keep this scaling trajectory going and put Gendo at the heart of how all visualisations are created.”

Patrik Schumacher, principal at Zaha Hadid Architects, comments: “I am excited about Gendo bringing high quality professional AI to architects’ fingertips. The gains in terms of both productivity and creative versatility are a step-change for our discipline.”

Nikolas Samios, Managing Partner at PT1, adds: “What stands out about Gendo – apart from the stellar team – is the fact that they have developed and proven an application that utilises the huge advances in AI for image and video generation that have been made possible by billions of dollars invested in the sector over the past two years. Combined with industry-specific workflows, languages, interfaces and business models, Gendo perfectly ensures product-market fit in architectural visualisation. In addition, Gendo already has a natural monetisation strategy that goes beyond the simple and self-explanatory freemium levels. As the use of today's generic AIs creates many IPR issues for larger studios, the offer of enterprise licences is highly appreciated.”

Alexi Malikotsinas, LEA Partners, comments: “We believe that every technology shift opens the aperture on new use cases and Gendo significantly expands what is achievable in this industry. With Gendo we see immense potential in democratising access to AI-based visualisation for architecture and real estate at large. We are impressed with what George, Will and the team at Gendo have been able to build, laser-focused on delivering a product that brings great value to their customers. With our experience in this category we are excited to join and support Gendo on its mission to create the next category leader, alongside PT1 and existing investors.”

Oliver Kicks, Concept Ventures, comments: “We are thrilled to welcome great new partners to the Gendo journey with LEA and PT1 co-leading this round. These new partners and the Seed round proceeds will help accelerate Gendo’s journey to arm architects and designers with world-class tooling. We couldn’t be more excited to watch George and Will scale from here.”

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