With new funding, Monumental plans to bring its construction robots to the U.S.

Monumental designs, machines, and maintains robots that lay bricks at construction sites. | Source: Monumental Monumental, an Amsterdam-based provider of construction robotics and software, this week raised $32 million in Series B funding. S.

this year and to enable its robots to do more things. S. this year, scale the number of robots it can deploy across Europe, and expand the range of construction tasks the robots can handle beyond bricklaying,” Salar al Khafaji, co-founder and CEO of Monumenal, told The Robot Report .

Monumental acts as a subcontractor during construction work. Contractors pay the company for finished walls rather than for robots. This, Monumental said, removes the financial and technical risk of owning and operating equipment.

“Our goal isn’t to replace people, but to give the industry the additional capacity it desperately needs,” al Khafaji said. ” How do Monumental’s robots build walls? Monumental’s electric, autonomous robots use advanced sensors, computer vision, and cranes to lay brick and mortar with millimeter precision.

Atrium, the company’s AI software platform, operates all of this. “Our robots autonomously build masonry structures by laying bricks and applying mortar on active construction sites alongside a human crew,” al Khafaji said. “They are also able to pick up special tools for additional tasks, such as inserting wall ties and pointing the mortar.

, along with a school, a community center, a hotel, and canal walls. “Humans remain responsible for the broader construction process,” al Khafaji continued. “The existing crew continues to manage the overall project, prepare the site, coordinate with other trades, and perform all work outside of the masonry process.

Monumental’s own operators deploy and oversee the robots, replenish materials, perform maintenance, and intervene if an unexpected situation arises that requires human judgment. S. S.

2 million more over the next three years just to keep up with demand. Monumental hopes to help close this gap. S.

and European construction markets. S. is more fragmented.

Here, building codes, labor structures, and construction practices can vary from state to state. “Monumental is uniquely positioned for this kind of challenge,” al Khafaji said. “We’ve already proven our ability to adapt our robots across different customers and construction practices in Europe, and our software-driven approach makes it possible to tailor deployments to local building methods and regulatory requirements.

” Real-world success drives Monumental’s latest funding Monumental said it investors were impressed by the company’s real-world successes. Khosla Ventures led the round, which also included participation from Hummingbird, Plural, and others. “The biggest lesson that we learned is that this actually works.

Our Series A round was focused on R&D and proving small-scale success,” said al Khafaji. “Our Series B was raised off of real-world success. ” “There are many unwritten unknown unknowns in construction which we’ve discovered by being deployed in the real world,” he said.

S. appeared first on The Robot Report .