Exclusive: Synaps secures $3.6 million to create an AI design platform.

      Five months after its beta launch in Tirana, the Austrian-Albanian startup has attracted 60,000 users, secured hundreds of paying customers, and gained Plug and Play as an investor.

      In November 2025, Synaps, an AI design startup from Vienna founded by three entrepreneurs of Albanian descent, selected an unconventional location for its beta launch: Tirana—the Albanian capital—renowned for its vibrant architectural scene and one of the few European cities to still pursue an ambitious public building initiative.

      The event was attended by prominent figures in architecture and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, a trained artist known for commissioning significant urban architectural projects.

      Five months later, Synaps has announced a $3.6 million pre-seed funding round led by the U.S.-based accelerator and venture capital firm Plug and Play, with participation from Zagreb's Fil Rouge Capital.

      The company reports achieving 60,000 total users, 1,500 daily active users, and hundreds of paying customers, all while remaining in beta prior to launching its first complete product version.

      “We wanted to showcase real metrics, traction, and credibility from relevant users,” stated CEO Brendon Ahmeti. “It was crucial for us to affirm our commitment to this industry, as we develop an AI-driven product aimed at transforming and democratizing it.”

      What is Synaps creating?

      Synaps describes itself as the offspring of Figma and Lovable, a Swedish platform that turns natural language prompts into functional websites. This analogy is intentionally chosen. Like Figma, Synaps offers a browser-based, collaborative real-time workspace. Similar to Lovable, it employs a prompt bar to turn natural language instructions into design outputs. This fusion, focusing on architectural drawing and rendering, is what the company refers to as ‘vibe designing.’

      The central product is based on Vecy AI, a generative vector-based floorplan drawing tool that the company claims has been trained on architects’ behavior to reduce command input by 80%, accelerating the drafting process to be 50 times faster than traditional tools.

      The rendering engine, which supports 2D, 3D, and video formats, is said to be 100 to 1,000 times quicker than current market solutions, depending on the complexity of the project. These figures are based on internal testing and have not undergone independent verification.

      The comparison with Autodesk is direct and intentional. Autodesk's AutoCAD holds roughly 39% of the global CAD software market and earned $1.79 billion from its AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT line in its last fiscal year, within a total revenue exceeding $6 billion.

      Revit, Autodesk's platform for building information modeling (BIM), is the leading tool in architectural BIM workflows. Synaps criticizes these established players for being designed for a pre-collaboration, pre-AI environment: desktop-centered, command-heavy, difficult for non-technical users to navigate, and structurally incompatible with the collaborative, iterative workflows that newer architects demand.

      The startup's pre-seed metrics are impressive for a product still in beta. Synaps reached 60,000 users partly through a social media strategy that garnered over 10 million views on YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn with what the company describes as minimal investment, securing 10,000 pre-registrations before the beta launch.

      The team expanded from four to seventeen employees over the five months following the beta launch, mainly in strategic positions. A new office in San Francisco was established after the founders spent time in Silicon Valley in late 2025.

      The industry response has been positive, with six of the world’s ten most significant architectural firms having tested or used Synaps daily, and the platform has gathered feedback from notable architects like Bjarke Ingels and Kengo Kuma.

      Christopher Polligkeit, senior investment associate at Plug and Play Austria, highlighted the investment around two key challenges: rendering time and fragmented tools. “Rendering can take up a significant portion of a studio’s time, which could be spent on additional projects and securing more pitches,” he noted. “Synaps greatly compresses that process. Equally significant is the platform’s collaborative approach: in an industry characterized by fragmented tools, having an AI-driven environment where the entire team can work together is a transformative advancement.”

      Julien Coustaury, managing partner at Fil Rouge Capital, which is the most active VC platform in the Adriatic and Balkan regions, expressed confidence in the team’s “clear product vision and deep insight into architects’ workflows.” Plug and Play’s last major investment in Austria prior to this round was in 2013 for the neobank N26.

      What’s next?

      Synaps plans to release its first full version, Version 1, in the summer of 2026, introducing over 20 new AI tools for drafting and post-production. The company aims to expand to 150,000 users by September 2026