WND Ventures Charts New Direction to Accelerate AEC Innovation at Venture West

In a fireside chat at the recent Venture West event in San Francisco, DPR CEO George Pfeffer and CTO Atul Khanzode sat down with BuiltWorlds Senior Director of Research Tyler Sewall to share a new vision for the company’s strategic venture arm WND Ventures.

“For 35 years, DPR has been building complex projects and pushing the industry forward,” said Atul Khanzode, CTO at DPR, in a statement released by the company. “WND reflects what we’ve learned: innovation only matters when it’s applied, and to find solutions, we need to work together. That is why we are partnering with other innovators in the space to solve real problems and deliver more predictable outcomes for our owners and the industry.”

While WND Ventures has operated as DPR’s venture arm for the last 10 years, having invested in more than a dozen startups, incubated four companies, and backed two funds as a limited partner, the announcement served as a sort of reimagining of the group’s model. The company describes the new direction as having a “sharper focus on AI, supply chain intelligence, and automation.”

Key pillars of the new WND model include:

• Shorter spinout cycles (1–2 years instead of 3–5)
• Hands-on collaboration with DPR’s subject-matter experts and projects
• A future data platform to support scalable AI integration
• Long-term capital commitment to sustained innovation
• Active and engaged partnerships across the supply chain, including owners, technology companies, other CVCs, and AEC practitioners

“This is about lasting impact,” said Kaushal Diwan, WND Ventures leader, in the same statement. “We’re building long-term partnerships and putting innovation to work on real projects, solving complex problems that have held the industry back. WND is here to be a force for change.”