Pre-seed round open · $200,000

Automated building-code compliance review for BIM

Every new IFC version checked automatically, the way software teams run tests before a release — with a provable record of which rules ran against which model. Shipping today on real project documentation; raising to open the Western market, starting with Sweden.

$200K Pre-seed round open. 18 months of runway for a four-founder distributed team.
3 U.S. provisional applications filed 19 Jul 2026 on the core mechanisms.
~2% of U.S. municipalities run any AI plan review — the category just tipped.
Live Audit engine already in production on real, externally-contracted documentation.

BIM Grade does not replace the engineer. Legal responsibility for the design stays with the chartered engineer and their firm. The platform produces findings and drafts as decision support; it never issues or signs the final documentation submitted to an authority.

Problem

Code compliance is where building projects stall

The check is manual, the codes move faster than the engineers, and the cost lands on the applicant.

$30–75K

Soft cost per project

What permit delay costs on a single residential project, by NAHB estimate. The applicant absorbs it — the fee was quoted before the review.

83%

Of developers blocked

Name permit delay as a top barrier to delivery. On the Swedish side, 89% of permit applications arrive incomplete on first submission.

3–5 days

Per document set

Senior engineer time spent cross-checking one set against dozens of codes by hand — and codes are amended continuously.

Market

The category just tipped. Penetration is still near zero.

Capital and regulation arrived in 2026; the installed base did not. That gap is the entry window.

Category
Just tipped
Early-adopter cities compressed plan review from six months to six days in 2026. PermitFlow raised $54M, Endra $43.4M, UpCodes reports 900K monthly users.
Penetration
≈2%
Roughly 10–15 of some 19,000 U.S. municipalities run any AI plan review. Momentum is strong; the installed base is near zero.
Moat
Fragmentation
No global winner is possible: every jurisdiction is its own corpus, amendments and effective dates. The defensible asset is an engine that replays one model against many.
Why Sweden is the first wedge. One code set (BBR + PBL) instead of 16 German states or 19,000 U.S. municipalities. The only Swedish incumbent sells to municipalities, leaving the applicant side open. The EU AI Act pushes government-facing tools into the high-risk class — pre-submission review stays clear of it. And the founder already runs a Swedish company inside the Vinnova funnel.
Solution

Continuous integration for buildings

Two mechanisms carry the product. Both are the subject of filed U.S. provisional applications.

SHIPPING

Coverage gate

PATENT PENDING

Each mandatory check carries its own capability, evaluation and evidence state. A “ready” verdict is structurally impossible while any required row is uncovered.

  • Obligation-indexed execution records
  • The tool cannot silently skip a rule
  • Deterministic geometry, not LLM guesses
  • Dual citation: code clause ↔ exact point in the model
IN DEVELOPMENT

Jurisdiction replay

PATENT PENDING

One immutable project graph, replayed against another country, state or effective date. Signed manifests carry both regulatory-valid and ingestion time.

  • Unaffected results provably unchanged
  • Typed causal delta between rule sets
  • Proof-carrying cross-domain correlation
  • Post-export verification of the delivered file
How it works

Three steps, and the last one is a human

The platform fits inside the firm's existing workflow instead of replacing it.

Push a model

An IFC file lands from manual upload, an API call or a common data environment — Autodesk Construction Cloud, Trimble Connect, BIMcollab.

The engine runs

Model readiness gate, then deterministic and AI checks against the resolved jurisdiction and code edition. Findings come back as BCF issues with element identifiers.

The engineer signs

BIM Grade is decision support. The chartered engineer reviews, decides and stamps. Liability stays with the professional — which is how this market already buys.

Competition

Everyone owns one column. Nobody owns the row.

“Upload a PDF and let AI find code violations” is a crowded lane. Neutral IFC plus jurisdiction replay is not — the incumbents are vendor-locked, buyer-locked or format-locked.

ProductIFC-nativeCode corpusApplicant-sideCross-jurisdictionProvable coveragePosition
Solibri / BIMcollab···BIM quality assurance; rules you author yourself
UpCodes / Helonic···Code content and AI reading of PDF drawings
Kestrel···Strong — but locked inside Revit
CodeComply / CivCheck····Sold to city halls, not to design firms
AiTech (Sweden)····Municipality-facing; applicant side left open
BIM GradeThe row nobody else holds

● claimed  ·  · not claimed publicly. Assessment based on vendor-published material as of July 2026; corrections welcome.

Traction

What exists before the round

A shipped engine, a real validated project, and three filings made before raising a cent.

Validated on a real project

3–5 days → 2–4 h
measured review time, not a projection
  • 24 sections of documentation in scope, mandatory state review.
  • External paying client — 1,057.8 m² public-building refurbishment.
  • PDF, DWG and IFC ingest already shipped.
  • Findings carry dual citation: code clause and the exact point in the document.

Filed before raising

3
U.S. provisional applications
  • 64/114,878 — coverage-controlled IFC processing.
  • 64/114,883 — proof-carrying correlation.
  • 64/115,038 — bitemporal source-closure replay.
  • All filed 19 Jul 2026 at the USPTO.

See it running

Live
open the product, not a video
  • proektologiya.ru/app — live audit module, opens in a browser.
  • app.proektologiya.ru — full build, demo access on request.
  • Running on paid, externally-contracted project documentation.
  • Same core, different rule pack — codes are data, not code.

One engine, two regions

1
codebase behind both markets
  • Region = a rule pack: critics, code corpus, templates, language.
  • The Russian deployment is the proving ground.
  • The Western build is the same core plus a Swedish pack.
  • Adding a jurisdiction is data work, not a rewrite.
Team

Four founders — Sweden, Serbia, remote

Deliberately distributed. The whole point of a $200K round is that this team can actually run on it.

AB
Alexander Brichkin Founder & architect · Sweden Solution and product architecture; author of the filed provisional portfolio. Runs the shipped audit engine end to end.
SE
Software engineer Co-founder · remote IFC and document parsing, multi-agent orchestration, retrieval, model cascade. Senior backend and machine-learning background in large technology companies.
BD
Sales & partnerships Co-founder · Serbia 15+ years selling complex B2B software. Owns the design-partner funnel and the Nordic pipeline from first call to signed pilot.
CE
Construction expert Co-founder · Serbia 17 years in project documentation and design review, practising. Writes the check specifications and validates every finding the engine produces.
Group structure. Three entities carry the business, and the deck is explicit about which does what.
Agonist IncUSAWestern contracting and the patent portfolio
Agonist Development ABSwedenR&D home; Nordic beachhead and the grant track
OOO ProektologiyaRussiaOperating and pilot entity — where the engine runs today
Full team dossiers, CVs and direct contacts are shared with investors and strategic partners on request.
The ask

$200,000 pre-seed — 18 months and one jurisdiction

Not a land-grab round. Enough to prove the Western wedge with a team that already ships.

Engineering · $90K 45% IFC coverage engine, deterministic geometry checks, version diff and evidence packs.
Swedish rule pack · $50K 25% BBR + PBL: means of egress, accessibility, fire separation, fixture counts.
Design partners · $36K 18% 5–8 Nordic firms on paid pilots, building a ground-truth regression corpus.
IP conversion · $24K 12% Non-provisional and PCT filings before the 12-month deadline on 19 Jul 2027.
Month 3

Swedish rule pack — first four check families

Means of egress, accessibility, fire separation and fixture counts, each with explicit applicability logic, required IFC fields and citations.

Month 6

Design partners live

5–8 Nordic firms running their own models through the engine; findings validated against their own reviews to build the regression corpus.

Month 12

First Western revenue + provisionals converted

3+ paid pilots, priority date secured to 19 Jul 2026, and a seed round raised on traction rather than on slides.

Why $200K is the right number. The team exists, is paid modestly and is distributed across Sweden, Serbia and remote. The engine exists — this funds a Western rule pack, not a rebuild. One jurisdiction and four check families is a scope small enough to actually finish. A comparable Bay Area team would spend the same amount in under three months on salaries alone.
Intellectual property

Filed before raising

Three U.S. provisional applications on the core mechanisms, all filed on 19 July 2026.

64/114,878

Coverage-controlled processing of IFC artifacts

Obligation-indexed execution records; a ready gate that cannot pass while a mandatory check is uncovered.

64/114,883

Proof-carrying correlation & exact-export verification

Typed joins over IFC entities with a provenance trail, a minimal replay witness, and verification of the delivered file.

64/115,038

Authenticated bitemporal source-closure replay

Replay of one project graph against another jurisdiction or date, with unaffected results provably unchanged.

Patent notice. “Patent pending” here refers to three U.S. provisional applications filed on 19 July 2026 at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Provisional applications are not granted patents, confer no enforceable rights, and are not an opinion on patentability or freedom to operate. They must be converted within twelve months to retain their priority date.
FAQ

The questions investors actually ask

Does the AI replace the engineer?
No. BIM Grade produces findings and drafts; the chartered engineer reviews, decides and signs. Legal responsibility for the design stays with the professional and their firm. That is not a limitation we apologise for — it is how the applicant-side market already buys, and it keeps us out of the high-risk classification that government-facing tools attract.
Why Sweden first, and not the United States?
Because “the West” is not one market. The U.S. applicant-side niche already has ten-plus named players, several funded. Sweden is a single code set (BBR + PBL), its only incumbent sells to municipalities, and the founder already operates a Swedish company inside the Vinnova funnel. One jurisdiction done properly beats five done thinly.
What exactly is patent pending?
Three U.S. provisional applications filed on 19 July 2026: coverage-controlled processing of IFC artifacts (64/114,878), proof-carrying correlation with exact-export verification (64/114,883), and authenticated bitemporal source-closure replay (64/115,038). They claim specific mechanisms, not the category. Provisional applications are not granted patents.
Is there a working product or just a deck?
The audit engine is in production and has been validated on a real, externally-contracted document set — 24 sections, mandatory state review — where it cut review time from 3–5 days to 2–4 hours. The live build is linked above; demo access is available on request.
Why only $200,000?
The team is four founders across Sweden, Serbia and remote, and the engine already exists. This round funds the Swedish rule pack, design partners and the patent conversion — not a rebuild. A comparable Bay Area team would spend $200K in under three months on salaries.
What does the group structure look like?
Agonist Inc (USA) for Western contracting and the patent portfolio, Agonist Development AB (Sweden) as the R&D home and Nordic entry, and OOO Proektologiya (Russia) as the operating and pilot entity where the engine runs today. Investment structure is discussed per investor.
Terms and abbreviations used on this page
BIM — Building Information Modeling — designing a building as a data model, not as drawings.
IFC — Industry Foundation Classes — the vendor-neutral open file format for BIM models.
OpenBIM — Working in IFC rather than one vendor's native format, so any tool can take part.
CI — Continuous integration — testing every new version automatically.
BCF — BIM Collaboration Format — the open standard for passing model issues between tools.
BBR / PBL — Boverkets byggregler and Plan- och bygglagen — Sweden's building regulations and its Planning and Building Act.
DACH — Germany, Austria and Switzerland as one language and regulatory bloc.
ICC / NFPA / ADA — The U.S. model-code bodies and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
NAHB — National Association of Home Builders — source of the permit-delay cost estimate.
EU AI Act — The European regulation classifying certain AI uses as high-risk.
Vinnova — Sweden's national innovation agency, funder of Swedish permit-automation pilots.
Revit — Autodesk's dominant BIM authoring application.
USPTO — United States Patent and Trademark Office.
PCT — Patent Cooperation Treaty — one filing preserving the right to file in most countries later.
NDA — Non-disclosure agreement.

Investors and strategic partners

Send the form and we reply within one business day with the deck, the financial model and a live demo of the audit engine.

or write directly: ab@agonist.se