Rayon lands €10M from Partech to bring AI and 3D into interior design software

Paris startup Rayon has closed a €10 million Series A led by Partech, lifting total funding to nearly €16 million. The company says the new cash will go into 3D mode, more AI features in the drawing workflow, and a bigger sales team.

Rayon was founded in 2021 by Stanislas Chaillou and Bastien Dolla. Chaillou, who wrote Artificial Intelligence and Architecture, came out of architecture and a stint as senior data scientist at Spacemaker, the Oslo startup Autodesk bought for $240 million in 2020. Dolla brings a different kind of background: policy, housing, and software, including co-founding the French housing marketplace Habx and advising the French secretary of state for housing.

The pitch is simple enough. Rayon is built for what Chaillou calls “the architecture of the 90%”: fit-outs, retail build-outs, and home renovations, the work that fills most construction projects but tends to get less attention from the big CAD names. The product runs entirely in the browser and tries to be lighter and faster than traditional BIM tools. It pulls floor plans, mood boards, specifications, and furniture schedules into one file, and it can turn DWG or PDF plans into editable drawings. Even scanned or photographed plans can go through its “Generate Plan” tool.

The company says Version 4, due by the end of the year, will combine 3D modelling and a full set of AI tools in a single browser tab. That is the bet: not AI bolted on at the edge, but embedded in the drawing process itself. Customers are already saving money with it. CityHub says it cut €10,000 a month by doing feasibility studies in-house, while Coloc Housing says it reduced feasibility costs by €11,000 a month before bringing in architects. Virgin Atlantic uses Rayon for airport lounges, and one design studio, Nolt Mathis, dropped a fifteen-year CAD subscription to switch.

Rayon is entering a market where Autodesk, Trimble, and Nemetschek still control about 42% of interior design software. It is also fighting other browser-based upstarts like Snaptrude and Arcol, plus visualisation players such as Gendo. Partech clearly thinks the timing is right. The harder part is proving that interior teams will keep moving off the old tools once the novelty wears off and the real work starts.