Seed Round · $5M · March 2026

On-Prem VLM Document Intelligence for AEC

Your drawings never leave your network. Zero cloud. Fully intelligent.

David Little · 713-309-5392 · david@thornrockconsulting.com

The Problem

AEC runs on drawings.
Drawings are broken.

Every large GC, defense contractor, and government infrastructure firm faces the same wall — and every cloud AI tool makes it worse.

1.8 hrs/day lost per engineer searching or recreating work — ~25% of payroll
10,000–50,000+ pages per project: drawings, specs, RFIs, submittals
Every cloud AI tool on the market sends your drawings to their server
ENR 500, defense, gov't: cloud processing is a non-starter by policy
Vendor ToS retains rights to generated outputs from uploaded drawings
$50K+ IT certification cost per software update at large GCs
We can't use that. Our drawings never leave our network. — Every large GC you've pitched

Market Opportunity

This is not a niche.
This is the next $10B+ wave.

DrawingIQ doesn't need to win the whole AEC AI market — it needs to own the sovereign segment, which is large, under-served, and structurally off-limits to every current competitor.

$32B
AI in Construction by 2033
26.4% CAGR
$12B
AEC Software Global (2026)
8.4% CAGR
$4.8B
AI Doc Processing US TAM (2026)
36–42% CAGR
39%
North America share of market
Largest region

"AI massively expands the market for AEC software, and there's a new wave of $10B+ companies coming."

— Jonas Ciplickas, Scale Venture Partners, February 2026. Path to $100M ARR at sub-1% North American AEC market penetration.

Why Now

2026 is the inflection point.
Three forces converge.

Each of these forces individually creates opportunity. Together they create urgency.

01
VLMs are finally accurate enough
Models like Qwen2-VL achieve 91%+ accuracy on complex document QA. What required a team of engineers two years ago now runs on a single GPU server. The technical moat is buildable — and defensible through fine-tuning on AEC-specific drawing data.
Qwen2-VL: 91.2% accuracy on doc QA — AlphaXiv, Dec 2024
02
Data sovereignty is a board-level issue
Post-2025, enterprise legal teams are actively auditing AI vendor ToS. "We never send your data out" is now a buying trigger, not a nice-to-have. Autodesk's own 2026 AI Trends report flags sovereignty as the forcing function driving firms to on-premises deployments.
Autodesk 2026 AI Trends: firms actively building on-prem to maintain sovereignty
03
Every competitor went cloud-only
ReadMyPlans, Togal, Bild AI, Kreo, Document Crunch — not one offers on-prem VLM processing. Cloud players cannot retrofit sovereignty without rebuilding from scratch. The category has been left open.
"If you're building here, drop me a line." — Jonas Ciplickas, Scale VP

The Solution

DrawingIQ — Any drawing format.
Zero cloud. Fully intelligent.

Right-click drawing → View Analytics → Smart model opens in browser → Query, edit, export
Any drawing format
Scanned PDF, PNG, DWG snapshot — no special format required
VLM element detection
Identifies walls, doors, windows, rooms, dimensions, tags, and annotations
2D → 3D reconstruction
Outputs a smart, interactive 3D model — a live data object, not a rendering
Full corpus RAG
Ask plain-English questions across 10,000+ pages of project documents
Trade-specific routing
Route only MEP drawings to MEP subs; only structural to structural engineers
Zero egress guarantee
All processing on your hardware — no cloud, no vendor ToS risk, no exposure

Working today. Built by our team. Running on our hardware. License validation is the only outbound call — one token ping, nothing else.

It Already Works

One JPG in. Smart 3D model out. Zero cloud.

This is an actual screen capture from the working prototype — not a mockup. The Hanoi dev team built this on-prem, no external APIs.

INPUT · Original JPG Floor Plan
Original 2D JPG floor plan — 40×36 ft residential, 9 rooms labeled with dimensions
→
OUTPUT · On-Prem 3D Smart Model (Browser)
3D smart model rendered in browser from the floor plan — walls, doors, windows as live editable geometry
94
Walls
8
Doors
12
Windows
9
Rooms

Competitive Landscape

No competitor offers on-prem VLM intelligence.
We are the category.

DrawingIQ

Your drawings never leave your network.

All VLM processing, RAG indexing, and model inference runs on hardware you own. License validation is the only outbound call — one token ping, nothing else.

  • On-prem VLM inference — no cloud compute
  • Zero drawing egress — no vendor ToS risk
  • Air-gap deployable for ITAR / defense
  • Browser-native — no $50K IT certification cycle
  • 2D → 3D reconstruction, fully on-device
  • Full corpus RAG across 10,000+ pages on-prem
Every Competitor

Your drawings go to their server the moment you upload.

Every named AEC AI tool is cloud-only. Vendor ToS for most products retain rights to generated outputs — a legal, contractual, and reputational liability for large GCs.

  • Cloud-only — drawings leave the network
  • Vendor ToS retains rights to generated outputs
  • Not viable for ITAR, defense, or government
  • No 2D → 3D reconstruction capability
  • Corpus RAG unavailable or cloud-dependent
  • Eliminated at procurement for sovereign data requirements
ReadMyPlansTogal.AI Document CrunchKreo Bild AIBluebeam
Product On-Prem / Air-Gap VLM Visual Reasoning 2D → 3D Reconstruction Full Corpus RAG Trade Routing Data Sovereignty
DrawingIQOn-Prem VLM Platform ✓ Core ✓ Core ✓ Core ✓ Core ✓ Yes ✓ Guaranteed
ReadMyPlansCloud · Drawing Extraction ✗ Cloud only ~ Partial ✗ No ✗ No ✗ No ✗ None
Togal.AICloud · Takeoff Automation ✗ Cloud only ~ Partial ✗ No ✗ No ✗ No ✗ None
Document CrunchCloud · Contract Analysis ✗ Cloud only ✗ No ✗ No ~ Partial ✗ No ✗ None
BluebeamDesktop + Cloud · Markup ~ Desktop (no AI) ✗ No ✗ No ✗ No ~ Manual ✗ None

✓ Yes   ✗ No   ~ Partial / Cloud-only

Business Model

Enterprise SaaS with on-prem deployment.
The best of both worlds.

$500
per user / month
Teams & SMB
$50K–$200K
annual site license
ENR 500 Enterprise
Land & Expand
Estimating team → Project management → Field ops → VDC
Year Users / Seats ARR Notes
Y1 500 $3M 10 enterprise customers, pilot expansion
Y2 2,500 $15M ENR 500 penetration begins
Y3 8,000 $48M Channel partnerships live
Y4 20,000 $120M <1% market penetration achieved

Path to $100M ARR at sub-1% North American AEC market penetration.

Go-to-Market

Three lanes, sequenced for speed.

Each lane is designed to generate references and revenue that unlock the next.

01
ENR 500 Direct
Target VP Operations, Chief Estimators, and VDC Directors. Data sovereignty is a known pain point. Browser-native delivery bypasses the $50K+ IT certification cycle.
02
Government & Defense
ITAR-adjacent projects require air-gapped tools by policy. DrawingIQ is architecturally compliant from day one. No competitors can say the same.
03
AEC Software Channel
White-label or OEM to Procore, Autodesk, Trimble. Bluebeam has 3M+ users and no meaningful AI roadmap. Existing dealer network: 40+ resellers worldwide.
Trade Show Presence
  • CONEXPO 2026 — Las Vegas, 300K attendees
  • AIA Conference on Architecture 2026
  • ENR FutureTech Summit 2026

Team

Proven operators. Domain insiders.
$75M+ revenue track record.

David Little
Co-Founder, CEO / CPO
  • Led product growth from $2M → $75M+ ARR
  • Intergraph · Autodesk · Hexagon · COADE
  • Co-founded Construxiv Technologies (prior exit)
  • Executive MBA, University of Texas at Dallas
  • 50+ yrs combined AEC software experience (Thornrock)
Co-Founder
Sales & Business Dev
  • Extensive AEC channel network
  • Enterprise sales experience
  • Details available under NDA
Dev Team
Hanoi, Vietnam
  • TypeScript · Python · Next.js
  • Docker/K8s · On-prem VLM stack
  • Operational today
  • 15+ years of AEC software experience
  • Roster available under NDA
5 pilot customers committed · 40+ AEC dealers & resellers worldwide · Active customer relationships in 100+ countries

Use of Funds

$5M Seed — Milestone-gated deployment.

Engineering (18 months)
Full-stack dev, VLM fine-tuning, 3D viewer, RAG
$2.2M
Founder Salaries (18mo)
David Little + co-founder, full-time
$600K
QA & Model Training
Edge case coverage, accuracy benchmarking
$500K
Trade Shows & Events
CONEXPO, AIA, ENR FutureTech
$400K
Sales Hire (Y1 Q3)
Enterprise AE with ENR 500 relationships
$300K
Infrastructure
GPU servers, CI/CD, containerization
$300K
Reserve / Contingency
Greenfield product risk buffer
$300K
Marketing & Content
LinkedIn, PR, demo videos, website
$200K
Legal, Accounting, Ops
IP protection, compliance, contracts
$200K
Tranche 1: $2.5M at term sheet  ·  Tranche 2: $2.5M upon first paying enterprise customer

$5M to build the category with us.

Next Steps
1. Schedule live product demo
2. Pilot customer introductions
3. Term sheet discussion

David Little  ·  713-309-5392  ·  david@thornrockconsulting.com