Construction robot company raises $10M in Series A funding

Key Takeaways:

• German construction tech company KEWAZO has raised roughly $20 million total in funding.
• KEWAZO’s vision is to automate and digitize the entire on-site logistics — from the arrival of materials at the construction site to their utilization.
• A dozen of the company’s initial product, LIFTBOT, have been working on European sites since 2021. 
• LIFTBOT’s tasks initially focused on scaffolding assembly, but the team believes it could be used for insulation, painting and other on-site material transport. 
• The company noted that this technology not only helps ease labour crunch pressure, it reduces the risk of accidents. 

The Whole Story:

Construction robotics firm KEWAZO announced the closing of its $10 million Series A funding round, bringing the total funds raised to-date to approximately $20 million. The round was led by Fifth Wall, with notable participation from Cybernetix Ventures, Unorthodox Ventures as well as the construction software company Nemetschek. 

Existing investors True Ventures and MIG Capital AG also participated in the round. This round comes on the heels of Kewazo’s $5 million Pre-Series A that closed in September 2021.   

“We have an excellent group of partners coming together that will enable us to keep building a leading company in construction robotics,” stated Artem Kuchukov, CEO and co-founder of KEWAZO. “This influx of capital will propel us to expand our sophisticated robotic fleet across Europe and North America, in tandem with enabling us to build out our additional digital services.”

KEWAZO both automates and digitizes the on-site material flow via state-of-the-art robotics and data analytics. The company’s initial product LIFTBOT, an intelligent robotic hoist for construction and industrial sites, is empowered by data analytics platform ONSITE. Since 2021, a dozen LIFTBOTs have been active on European construction sites and leading industrial plants in the oil, gas, energy and chemical industries, including with key industry names like Bilfinger and Altrad. 

“Labor shortage continues to be the most acute challenge facing the construction industry today,” said Miguel Nigorra Esteban, partner at Fifth Wall. “Artem and his entire team at Kewazo are laser-focused on solving this head-on, bringing much needed automation and robotics to the trillion dollar construction industry. We’re thrilled to be a part of their category-defining growth.”

Upon inception, KEWAZO initially honed in on scaffolding assembly, a $50 billion industry in which more than 80 per cent of projects are still undertaken completely manually. 

According to KEWAZO, their robotics can save 70 per cent of man hours for these tasks. Their team believes this approach not only addresses construction’s critical labor-shortage, but reduces the risk of accidents and improves overall working conditions on-site.

By being involved in critical on-site activities, LIFTBOT collects key operational data. This data is then processed and provided to customers as actionable insights via the data analytics platform. This enhances transparency of what happens on-site at construction sites and industrial plants, leading to a multitude of advantages, including data-driven and proactive project management.

With minor adjustments, the technology may be applied to allied activities such as insulation, painting and other on-site material transport. KEWAZO’s vision is to automate and digitize the entire on-site logistics — from the arrival of materials at the construction site to their utilization.

“I think it is very useful that companies like KEWAZO are disrupting our business. We will have problems in finding and keeping good personnel – this will be our main focus in the coming years and decades. These innovations are very helpful in attracting and motivating our coworkers and help us to provide our customers with cost-effective and safe services, ” said Bart Gyssels, chief innovation officer at Altrad Services Benelux.