TL;DR
Nick Donahue relaunched his custom-home startup as Drafted after shutting Atmos nine months ago. Drafted, five months old, has raised $1.65 million and uses a proprietary AI model to generate single-story floor plans and exterior designs at template prices.
What happened
Nick Donahue, who previously ran Atmos, shut that company nine months ago after rising interest rates and operational complexity undermined its business. He has since founded Drafted, a five-month-old startup that replaces in-house designers with AI-driven software to generate residential floor plans and exterior designs in minutes. Drafted charges roughly $1,000–$2,000 for a complete plan and currently supports single-story homes; multi-story and lot-specific features are planned. The company has six employees — four from Atmos — and reports roughly 1,000 daily users since opening to the public. Drafted raised $1.65 million at a $35 million post-money valuation from investors including Bill Clerico (Convective Capital), Patrick Collison, Jack Altman, Josh Buckley and Moses Moody. Donahue says Drafted’s specialized model was trained on real, permitted house plans and runs far more cheaply than general-purpose AI models.
Why it matters
- If successful, Drafted could reduce the cost and time needed for custom home design, positioning itself between expensive architects and static template plans.
- Making custom design cheaper could expand a relatively small market—only about 300,000 of the roughly 1 million new U.S. homes built annually are custom designed.
- Drafted’s low per-plan compute cost, if accurate, would help scale design generation economically.
- The housing industry has resisted disruption historically, so adoption is uncertain and will test whether price and speed can drive broader demand.
- Competition from general-purpose LLMs or other entrants could erode advantage unless Drafted builds a durable brand or data moat.
Key facts
- Drafted is about five months old and has six employees; four joined from Donahue’s prior startup, Atmos.
- The startup raised $1.65 million at a $35 million post-money valuation from investors including Bill Clerico, Patrick Collison, Jack Altman, Josh Buckley and Moses Moody.
- Drafted’s product generates five design options in minutes based on user inputs; users can generate additional sets iteratively.
- A full plan via Drafted costs roughly $1,000–$2,000.
- Donahue says the company trained its own AI model on real house plans that passed permitting; he claims the model costs about $0.002 per floor plan to run versus $0.13 for a general-purpose AI.
- Drafted currently supports only single-story homes; multi-story and lot-specific features are planned.
- Since launch, Drafted has attracted about 1,000 daily users.
- Atmos previously raised $20 million, reached $7 million in revenue, employed about 40 people, designed roughly $200 million worth of homes and built 50 homes before shutting down.
What to watch next
- User growth and conversion from free users to paying customers as an indicator of product-market fit.
- Expansion to multi-story and lot-specific design capabilities and timing of those releases (not confirmed in the source).
- Whether Drafted sustains a cost advantage and whether competitors or general-purpose LLMs replicate its offering (not confirmed in the source).
- Regulatory and permitting acceptance of AI-generated plans across jurisdictions and any friction in moving from designs to permitted constructions (not confirmed in the source).
Quick glossary
- Custom home: A house designed specifically for an individual client, often involving bespoke floor plans and finishes rather than mass-produced tract homes.
- Floor plan: A scaled diagram showing the arrangement of rooms, spaces and physical features as seen from above.
- Permitting: The process by which local authorities review and approve building plans to ensure they meet codes and regulations before construction.
- AI model: A trained algorithm that can perform tasks such as generating images or designs based on input data and learned patterns.
- Post-money valuation: A company’s estimated value immediately after a new round of financing, including the new capital injected.
Reader FAQ
What is Drafted?
Drafted is an AI-first startup that generates residential floor plans and exterior designs; it was founded by Nick Donahue after he closed Atmos.
How much funding has Drafted raised?
Drafted has raised $1.65 million at a $35 million post-money valuation from a group of angel and seed investors.
Does Drafted employ designers?
No — unlike Donahue’s previous company, Drafted does not keep designers on staff and relies on its AI to produce plans.
Can Drafted produce multi-story or lot-specific plans?
Drafted currently generates single-story plans; the company says multi-story and lot-specific features are planned.
Is Drafted profitable or generating revenue?
Not confirmed in the source.
Nick Donahue’s parents were in the business of building houses, which means he spent his childhood hearing about the U.S. construction industry. His dad built homes for major developers, and…
Sources
- This founder just landed funding for a second go at the same problem: affordable custom home design
- Press Releases
- Unconventional water resources: Global opportunities and …
- Fnal Genenc Environmental Impact Statement
Related posts
- Kiki the Tooth Fairy: a digital tracker for today’s tech kids
- Amazon’s Alexa+ adds Angi, Expedia, Square and Yelp integrations
- ServiceNow to Acquire Cybersecurity Startup Armis for $7.75 Billion