Real Tech Global Fund No. 2 Invests in FORMAS.AI, Reconstructing Architectural Design Processes
Real Tech Global Fund No. 2, operated by UntroD Capital Asia, has invested $3.98 million in FORMAS.AI, a Singapore-based startup leveraging AI to rebuild architectural design processes. FORMAS.AI provides an end-to-end platform from sketching to 3D modeling and visualization, enhancing design efficiency and quality.
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- 📰 Published: May 8, 2026 at 18:00
- 🔍 Collected: May 8, 2026 at 09:31
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Real Tech Global Fund No. 2, operated by UntroD Capital Asia Pte. Ltd. (UntroD, Headquarters: Singapore, Managing Director: Yukihiro Maru, hereinafter "the Company"), has made a new investment in the seed round of FORMAS.AI (Location: Singapore/USA, CEO: Yiping Goh, hereinafter "FORMAS.AI"), a company that is rebuilding the architectural design process. This round was led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, totaling $3.98 million in funding. This funding is one of the largest pre-seed rounds in Southeast Asia in 2026, and the Company is participating as a partner to support FORMAS.AI's expansion into the Japanese market.
Founders Carlos Bañón (right: Co-founder & CDPO) and Yiping Goh (left: Co-founder & CEO)
## Structural Challenges in the Industry: How to Overcome the Trade-off Between Quality and Efficiency
The AEC (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction) industry, including architecture, civil engineering, and engineering, is a massive industry worth approximately $10 trillion globally, yet its design process has not undergone fundamental evolution. While there are over 2.5 million architects worldwide, many continue to rely on CAD-centric workflows established in the 1980s.
Design work is fragmented across multiple tools such as sketching, CAD, 3D modeling, and rendering, leading to manual conversions and adjustments every time a design change occurs. As a result, many designers spend their time on repetitive tasks and are unable to allocate sufficient time to creative judgment, which is their true focus.
Furthermore, in recent years, there has been a demand for high-precision visual proposals from the early stages of a project, forcing designers to invest significant effort even before contracts are secured. Such inefficiencies are not limited to individual companies but act as a bottleneck that constrains the productivity of the entire AEC industry, including designers and engineers.
In Japan, too, the application of overtime work regulations in 2024 (the so-called "2024 problem") has made productivity improvement in the construction and design sectors an urgent issue. In this situation, architectural design is currently facing a major turning point, arguably the biggest since the introduction of AutoCAD in 1982.
## A Product and Team Transforming Architects from "Draftsmen to Creative Conductors"
FORMAS.AI is addressing these structural challenges by developing an AI design platform that can seamlessly execute everything from sketching to 3D model generation and visualization. By integrating fragmented design processes and directly converting initial design ideas into structurally coherent data, it redefines the design process itself.
The company's strength also lies in the rare combination of its founding team. Co-founder and CPO Carlos Bañón is a world-renowned researcher in computational architecture and digital fabrication, and a recipient of the Singapore President's Design Award. With expertise in both research and practice, he deeply understands the fundamental challenges of design and leads the overall product development. On the other hand, CEO Yiping Goh is a serial entrepreneur who has grown multiple businesses and possesses the execution capability to realize large-scale business expansion.
At the core of the company's technology are its unique orchestration technology that controls multiple models according to their purpose, and design algorithms that incorporate architectural specific structural and spatial conditions. This suppresses "beautiful but unrealizable designs (hallucinations)" often seen in general generation tools, ensuring accuracy that can withstand actual construction. Furthermore, it eliminates the need for manual data conversion that traditionally occurred between multiple tools, and by integrating the design workflow into a single environment, it enables rapid realization of designs while maintaining the designer's intent. Its characteristic feature is that it functions as a foundation integrated into the design process itself, not merely as a tool.
Since the release of its beta version in November 2025, in just about five months, it has been used by approximately 6,000 designers in 135 countries worldwide, generating over 500,000 designs, rapidly expanding its traction.
## Future Expectations
FORMAS.AI's approach not only streamlines the initial design process but also has the potential to transform the very nature of architectural design as intellectual labor. The lead time from concept review to visualization is shortened from traditional weeks to minutes, making it possible to dramatically increase the number of design iterations.
In the short term, advanced bridging functions from initial design to 3D modeling are expected.
Founders Carlos Bañón (right: Co-founder & CDPO) and Yiping Goh (left: Co-founder & CEO)
## Structural Challenges in the Industry: How to Overcome the Trade-off Between Quality and Efficiency
The AEC (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction) industry, including architecture, civil engineering, and engineering, is a massive industry worth approximately $10 trillion globally, yet its design process has not undergone fundamental evolution. While there are over 2.5 million architects worldwide, many continue to rely on CAD-centric workflows established in the 1980s.
Design work is fragmented across multiple tools such as sketching, CAD, 3D modeling, and rendering, leading to manual conversions and adjustments every time a design change occurs. As a result, many designers spend their time on repetitive tasks and are unable to allocate sufficient time to creative judgment, which is their true focus.
Furthermore, in recent years, there has been a demand for high-precision visual proposals from the early stages of a project, forcing designers to invest significant effort even before contracts are secured. Such inefficiencies are not limited to individual companies but act as a bottleneck that constrains the productivity of the entire AEC industry, including designers and engineers.
In Japan, too, the application of overtime work regulations in 2024 (the so-called "2024 problem") has made productivity improvement in the construction and design sectors an urgent issue. In this situation, architectural design is currently facing a major turning point, arguably the biggest since the introduction of AutoCAD in 1982.
## A Product and Team Transforming Architects from "Draftsmen to Creative Conductors"
FORMAS.AI is addressing these structural challenges by developing an AI design platform that can seamlessly execute everything from sketching to 3D model generation and visualization. By integrating fragmented design processes and directly converting initial design ideas into structurally coherent data, it redefines the design process itself.
The company's strength also lies in the rare combination of its founding team. Co-founder and CPO Carlos Bañón is a world-renowned researcher in computational architecture and digital fabrication, and a recipient of the Singapore President's Design Award. With expertise in both research and practice, he deeply understands the fundamental challenges of design and leads the overall product development. On the other hand, CEO Yiping Goh is a serial entrepreneur who has grown multiple businesses and possesses the execution capability to realize large-scale business expansion.
At the core of the company's technology are its unique orchestration technology that controls multiple models according to their purpose, and design algorithms that incorporate architectural specific structural and spatial conditions. This suppresses "beautiful but unrealizable designs (hallucinations)" often seen in general generation tools, ensuring accuracy that can withstand actual construction. Furthermore, it eliminates the need for manual data conversion that traditionally occurred between multiple tools, and by integrating the design workflow into a single environment, it enables rapid realization of designs while maintaining the designer's intent. Its characteristic feature is that it functions as a foundation integrated into the design process itself, not merely as a tool.
Since the release of its beta version in November 2025, in just about five months, it has been used by approximately 6,000 designers in 135 countries worldwide, generating over 500,000 designs, rapidly expanding its traction.
## Future Expectations
FORMAS.AI's approach not only streamlines the initial design process but also has the potential to transform the very nature of architectural design as intellectual labor. The lead time from concept review to visualization is shortened from traditional weeks to minutes, making it possible to dramatically increase the number of design iterations.
In the short term, advanced bridging functions from initial design to 3D modeling are expected.