The Amsterdam-based company claims credit for the construction of more than a hundred homes in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, built by a trio of autonomous robots working from a building model.
Monumental doesn't sell a machine, it sells a finished wall. The Amsterdam-based company acts as a subcontractor on construction sites, with its own robots, and therefore assumes responsibility — and risk — for the work delivered. A $32 million Series B round led by Khosla Ventures, along with Hummingbird and Plural, is to fund a launch in the United States and the expansion of the park in Europe.
The system is based on three electric robots that divide up the work and move around the site on their own: one lays the bricks and applies the mortar, the other two supply it with bricks and mortar. Sensors and computer vision ensure that they are laid down to the millimetre; the company's software platform, Atrium, controls them directly from the digital building plans. The small footprint, compared to truck- or crane-mounted systems, makes it possible to operate on narrow plots with little human supervision.
The company claims to have more than a hundred housing units in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, in addition to schools, public facilities, hotels and canal walls. Its director Salar al Khafaji places the objective on the side of missing capacity rather than replacement: the American construction industry estimates its labour deficit at between 200,000 and 400,000 people per month.
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