Oslo-based Solvera has raised $6.3 million in a pre-seed round led by Seedcamp to build an AI-native engineering firm for the construction industry, starting with mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) systems. The round also included participation from Inception Fund, Momentum, PSV, Sondo, OBOS Ventures, Construct Venture and The Nordic Web Ventures, and was backed by angel investors Anders Kvale and Håvard Haukeland (Spacemaker founders) and former OBOS CEO Daniel Kjørberg Siraj.
AI-native engineering firm model
Solvera, founded in 2026 by Arif Mirza, Pål Eskild Rasmussen and Thorvald Thorsnes, operates as an engineering services provider rather than a software vendor. The company combines proprietary AI systems and AI agents with experienced building engineers to deliver end-to-end engineering services — from initial requirements and constraints through to coordinated, construction-ready designs. Clients pay for the engineering work delivered rather than software licences or consulting hours.
Solvera focuses initially on MEP engineering, which covers a building’s heating, ventilation, electrical and plumbing systems. The company aims to automate an increasing share of tasks such as testing design alternatives, routing systems and coordinating technical information, while leaving professional-judgement decisions to engineers. Its operating system is designed to reuse knowledge from completed projects to support future work.
Co-founder and CEO Arif Mirza said: “We’ve had twenty years of better building engineering software, and now AI, but productivity and the fundamental way engineering gets delivered has barely changed. Technology is only part of the answer. To capture its full potential, you also have to rethink how the firm operates and how it makes money. That is incredibly difficult to do inside organizations built around thousands of people, active projects and billable hours.”
Co-founder and CTO Pål Rasmussen added: “The most valuable thing in building engineering has always been the engineer’s judgement, yet much of their day goes to sorting a constant stream of information and changes, manual data entry, and coordination. Our goal is to free up their time so they can focus on high impact decisions, with our agents handling the rest like testing alternatives, coordination, and production work”.
Early traction and client work
Since launching in July 2026, Solvera has grown to a team of nine and secured more than $1 million in contracted revenue during its first three months of operations, according to the company. It is working on several building projects in Norway, including commercial projects with construction contractor Betonmast.
Kristian Gjestemoen, Managing Director at Betonmast Buskerud-Vestfold, said: “As a contractor, we see the consequences of fragmented and inefficient engineering every day: unnecessary cost, slow iterations and problems that are discovered too late. We don’t believe adding more hours will solve this, so we want partners who are willing to challenge established ways of working, move faster, and take responsibility for better outcomes. That is why we chose Solvera for several of our projects.”
Funding use and international plans
The new funding will support expansion of Solvera’s engineering and technology teams in Oslo, the opening of a London office and further development of its AI-powered operating system. The company also plans to enter additional markets as its model evolves.
Seedcamp Partner Tom Wilson said: “We invested in Solvera because Arif, Thorvald and Pål are not just building software for engineers, they are rebuilding the firm itself. That is a much bigger swing, and a much better one. Construction has absorbed two decades of tooling without shifting how the work actually gets delivered or paid for. Solvera is the first team we have seen with the technical depth and industry experience to close that gap, starting with MEP and expanding from there. This is what the next generation of professional services firms looks like.”
