ETH Zurich spin-off goNEON Agentic Systems has secured CHF 150,000 from Venture Kick to advance its agentic artificial intelligence platform for infrastructure planning. The Zurich-based startup is developing technology that allows planners, engineering firms, and infrastructure operators to produce technically feasible and regulation-compliant designs within minutes rather than months. The award marks the latest step in goNEON’s effort to turn research and paid pilot projects into a scalable platform for complex infrastructure decisions.
Modernizing a Manual Planning Process
Planning roads, utility networks, transit systems, and other urban infrastructure still depends heavily on manual engineering workflows, disconnected software, and lengthy technical analysis. As projects become more complex and budgets face greater pressure, teams often lack the time and resources to evaluate a wide range of possible designs before committing to a plan. goNEON is targeting this inefficiency by automating repetitive planning tasks while incorporating the technical standards, local regulations, and physical constraints that shape real projects.
How the Platform Works
The company’s agentic planning engine, known as N!, generates infrastructure scenarios and maps in response to planning queries submitted by customers. Its system combines geospatial intelligence, knowledge graphs, and large language models to analyze spatial data, network conditions, regulatory requirements, and engineering parameters before proposing potential designs. The goal is not to replace engineers, but to give professional teams a faster way to explore alternatives, compare trade-offs, and refine projects while maintaining technical and regulatory requirements.
Expanding the Range of Alternatives
Traditional planning processes can require weeks or months of expert work to produce and assess a limited number of infrastructure options. goNEON says its platform can complete parts of that process within minutes, enabling teams to examine significantly more scenarios before selecting a preferred approach. By increasing the number of viable alternatives available for review, the technology could help planners identify designs that better balance cost, implementation constraints, mobility needs, and compliance obligations.
Early Commercial Traction
goNEON has already generated more than USD 250,000 in revenue from paid pilot projects and is working with cities and engineering firms across Europe. The company has also reported projects in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, and the United States, demonstrating demand beyond its home market. Its current business model combines agentic planning services with pilot engagements, which the startup intends to convert gradually into repeatable queries and standardized product modules.
Founders and Company Strategy
The startup was founded by CEO Raphael Eder and CTO Lukas Ballo, whose combined backgrounds cover entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, transportation, and urban planning. Eder said Venture Kick helped the team move from research toward customer validation by encouraging an early commercial focus and connecting the founders with investors and other entrepreneurs. goNEON now plans to build on that foundation by developing a broader infrastructure-planning platform capable of serving planning offices, engineering firms, cities, and major infrastructure operators.
Use of the Venture Kick Funding
The CHF 150,000 award will be used to prioritize pilot projects with the strongest market potential and identify workflows that can be standardized for wider deployment. goNEON also intends to transform recurring planning processes into scalable product modules and validate the use cases that will form the foundation of its future platform. This transition will be central to determining whether the company can move beyond customized projects while retaining the flexibility required for different locations, infrastructure categories, and regulatory frameworks.
Venture Kick’s support gives goNEON additional resources to commercialize an AI system aimed at one of the most complex and labor-intensive areas of urban development. The startup’s early revenue and international pilot activity suggest that planners and infrastructure operators are seeking faster tools for evaluating projects without weakening engineering or compliance standards. Its next challenge will be proving that successful individual deployments can be converted into a reliable and repeatable platform for infrastructure planning across multiple markets.