From a research project to a multi-award-winning startup: Dr.-Ing. Phillip Schönfelder and Benedikt Faltin, members of the Department of Computing in Engineering, founded the company blixdata together with Nick Schlichting. Using artificial intelligence (AI) developed in-house, the startup converts scans of construction plans into digital, editable 3D models in a matter of seconds.

The foundation for the company’s founding was laid in the joint research work conducted by Schönfelder and Faltin on the automated creation of 3D building models. During the research project, the team was repeatedly asked by interested parties whether the solution they had developed was also available for purchase—the decisive impetus for founding blixdata.

Since then, the startup has grown successfully—in part thanks to support from the WORLDFACTORY Transfer and Startup Center—and has already won several awards, including a prize at the Data Science Ruhrgebiet conference. A particular highlight is winning the 2026 Rising Star Award, which comes with a prize of 25,000 euros. The young company also receives support through an EXIST startup grant from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, as well as WerkX funding from the City of Bochum.

The technology holds great potential for the digitization of the building stock: In addition to architectural firms, the offering is also aimed at engineering firms, municipalities, and large infrastructure operators. Since a large portion of construction plans are still available as paper documents or PDFs, there is a significant need for automated digitization in this area.