Lamarr:AI, a startup founded through research collaboration at MIT, Georgia Tech, and Syracuse University, has secured $1.1 mn in pre-seed funding led by Hazelview Ventures, the venture capital arm of Hazelview Investments, a prominent Canadian real estate firm.
Additional investors include milemark•capital, Newlab, Georgia Tech’s Venture Fund, and MIT’s SBXi Fund. The funding will help Lamarr develop and scale advanced tools designed to eliminate carbon emissions while lowering building maintenance and ownership costs.
Tarek Rakha, CEO of Lamarr and Associate Professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, highlighted the significance of this achievement.
The interest from real estate companies validates nearly a decade of refining our technology in the lab. Using drones, thermal imaging, and AI, we can autonomously detect building defects with unprecedented scale and accuracy.
Tarek Rakha, CEO of Lamarr:AI
This allows property owners to address issues early, avoiding costly repairs and environmental risks.
Lamarr has already collaborated with building owners and facilities managers to save over $1 mn in engineering and construction expenses. Its technology identifies issues like leaky roofs and deteriorating window seals while enabling efficient planning for large-scale building envelope retrofits.
By automating thermal image analysis with drones and AI, the company delivers actionable insights faster and more accurately than traditional manual audits. Through Building Energy Modeling (BEM), Lamarr also quantifies energy loss caused by defects, providing ROI models that guide capital expenditure decisions.
Roger Poirier, Co-Founder of Hazelview Ventures, expressed enthusiasm for the partnership.
Lamarr:AI’s inspection service has already benefited our operations and exemplifies the innovation needed to reach net-zero goals sustainably
Sebastian Barriga, Co-Founder of milemark•capital
“This technology offers efficiency gains at scale, transforming how we design and manage building performance and energy use.”
Lamarr specializes in automated solutions for building diagnostics and retrofitting. By combining drones, thermal imaging, and AI analytics, the company delivers faster, more affordable, and highly accurate defect detection and resolution compared to traditional methods.
