Bricklaying robots developed by a Dutch startup will be heading to sites in the UK after the firm secured $32m (£23.8m) of funding.
Monumental, founded in 2021, has a fleet of more than 150 autonomous bricklaying robots that have worked on sites in Europe and the UK (including a Taylor Woodrow project in Dudley and Galostar in east London). The injection of capital (led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from existing investors Plural and Hummingbird) will help the business target more sites in the UK.
Monumental’s robots use sensors, computer vision and cranes to lay brick and mortar with “millimetre precision”, operated by an AI platform, Atrium (developed by Monumental). A robot can typically lay around 300 bricks per day on a single charge. However, one of the robots recently achieved a record performance of laying more than 1,000 bricks in a single day. The robots are designed to operate throughout the working day and are typically recharged overnight.
The robots have built walls for more than 100 homes across the Netherlands and the UK, as well as for a school, a community centre and a hotel. They have even built canal walls. Nearly half of the homes were built in the past three months.
Monumental has two robots in the UK and expects to grow the fleet to 20 by the end of the year.
The UK Monumental team comprises Mark Bruno (who has a background in proptech and consultancy) and Joe Posnett (formerly with OpenSpace and Wates). Monumental has 10 British staff in Amsterdam who work in the UK on a per project basis, and is hiring robot operators and technicians in the UK.
“The world simply does not have enough people to build what it needs, and that shortage will not be solved by another app or another robot doing backflips on stage,” said Salar al Khafaji, co-founder and CEO of Monumental. “It takes machines that turn up on site and lay real brick all day, to spec, which is what our fleet already does today.
“Every robot we deploy expands the industry’s capacity to build, bringing a future of beautiful, affordable, bespoke buildings and infrastructure closer to reality. Khosla’s investment lets us put many more of them to work in more countries while expanding beyond bricklaying.”
Video | how the robot lays bricks
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Looks the part however, as im a Bricklayer of 40 years , these things were triald in tge 1980s.
So nothing new, can the mavhine load itself, pickout the chipped / unsuitable bricks colour variation, different sizes as bricks are made from a natural product so there can be a big varient, can it point up depending on the spec finish as there are many, seems to be just a gimmick whoever invested £21m have either wasted there money or charge that much a m2 that its a sure fire winner, can it build corners , build pillers attatched or isolated? It cant fo arcges feature reinforced work , not to mention all the different brickwork bonds, can it cover the brickwork when it starts raining/ frost protection, all of these it cant do, what you can do is spend more money by increasing the £s for Bricklayers and encouraging young people to embark on a career mission.