Google X Alum Flux Factory Raises $29M Series B

One of Google X’s former moonshots is raising cash as it looks to disrupt the architecture design space with its specialized collaborative data exchange service.

Flux Factory, Inc. announced $29 million in Series B funding co-led by Temasek and Surbana Jurong Private Limited. Far East Ventures, DFJ, South Park Ventures, Borealis Ventures, and Obvious Ventures also participated in the round. The company has raised $8 million to date from investors like Google Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.

Flux sees its worth in its ability to help the planet adapt. The company says that by 2050 there will be another two billion people living in cities on Earth. The company says its engineered architecture tools will help the world’s architects and builders attack problems in the most sustainable and efficient ways possible.

One item that is apparent from the list of investors joining this raise, is the heavily important role Flux sees in Asian markets as the SF-based company moves forward.

If the company sounds wildly ambitious, it may just be in its genes. Flux Factory was founded in late-2010 in the Google X Labs, where it was one of the company’s moonshot candidates before it was spun out into a distinct private venture.

The company’s first project is aimed at assisting architects and building professionals to save precious time when swapping files and making changes. The cloud-based collaboration service allows contractors, engineers and architects to add helpful plugins into their existing work flows and saves them crucial time in simplifying file transfer, data conversion, and data-merge.

The company details the process more in a press release.

Until now, sharing and executing new ideas across the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) value chain have been hindered by cumbersome interoperability among the numerous software applications used during a project lifecycle. Low value tasks such as merging changes or converting data takes significant time from the creative work. In contrast, Flux provides seamless data exchange between industry design tools such as Rhino and Revit.

Flux is currently building up its support for some of the most popular pieces of design software. It currently is compatible with programs like Grasshopper, Excel, and Dynamo and is looking to add support in early 2016 for popular tools like Revit, AutoCAD, 3ds Max and SketchUp.

“Collaboration tools are critical infrastructure elements to address the urgent need for affordable and sustainable buildings for an urbanizing world,” said Nicholas Chim, Flux’s co-Founder, in a statement. “Our industry needs to work together to develop new methodologies to meet this demand, while minimizing our usage of energy, water, and extracted resources.”

In addition to the funding news, Flux announced that Nina Yang, COO of Singbridge, will join the Flux board of directors.

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