Contech Funding Flows to Quick-Build Housing
VC backing goes to modular builders and 3D printers who say they can put up houses four times faster.
Construction technology firms that can speed the building of new houses are drawing an infusion of new venture capital funding.
San Mateo, California-based modular home builder VEEV recently announced a $400M Series D funding round, which the company said would be deployed to scale operations, accelerate R&D initiatives and build additional digital fab production facilities across the US.
Veev uses pre-built panels to assemble homes on site in a process the company claims is four times faster than traditional housing construction, according to a press release.
Veev’s funding round was led by Bond, with participation from LenX, Zeev Ventures, Fifth Wall Climate Tech and JLL Spark Global Ventures.
Austin, TX-based ICON, which uses 3D printing to build homes, recently raised $185M in new funding. ICON in 2018 built the first permitted 3D-printed home in the US, a 350 SF house it printed using concrete in a process that took two days to complete.
Diamond Age, a Phoenix-based robotics startup that uses automation and 3D printing to create housing on demand, raised a $50M Series A round led by Prime Movers Lab, with seed investors including Alpaca VC, Dolby Family Ventures and Timber Grove Ventures.
Diamond Age is developing 26 robotic end-of-arm tools the company says will offset more than half of the manual labor required to build a new home. The startup also is working on additive manufacturing tools that move along a gantry system to layer concrete and “print” a home, according to the company’s release.
With labor shortages plaguing the construction industry, builders increasingly are turning to robotics to speed construction. The use of robotics in large-scale home building is most suitable in developments with open space for access by the machines, which may not be suitable in building renovations if tracks need to be laid robot mobility.
Robotic bricklaying units are gaining use in the construction industry, with one entry claiming it can cut the amount of time needed to lay the foundation of a new house down to two or three days from the traditional norm of three to four weeks.
Australian robotics company Fastbrick Robotics recently introduced what it says is the world’s first completely autonomous bricklaying robot, the Hadrian X, which can put down bricks 10 times faster than humans, according to the company’s release.
According to reports, the Hadrian X recently broke its own speed record, laying 200 bricks in an hour.
Contech players also are addressing the difficulty of securing building materials in an era of supply chain congestion. RenoRun, an e-commerce platform based in Montreal, recently raised $142M in Series B funding to expand its online marketplace for construction materials including lumber, drywall, hardware and paint.
RenoRun allows contractors to customize their orders for multiple jobsites.