I know it’s popular to theorize that robots are taking over everyone’s jobs, but what if they could take over tough and remedial jobs like laying bricks to build new low-cost homes for people.
Wouldn’t that be a good thing?
Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Working with bricks is hard work. Anyone who’s ever tried to build a wall, or mix concrete, knows it is tough work. The construction industry is having a hard time finding skilled laborers, with an emphasis on the word skilled.
And the construction industry isn’t this small market that we should just overlook. I mean, in the U.S. alone it’s a $2 trillion a year industry.
So a Dutch startup named Monumental is attempting to enter the construction industry one brick at a time (sorry for the pun, I couldn’t help it).
Monumental recently emerged from stealth with a $25 million dollar investment from the VC firms Plural and Hummingbird, with participation from Northzone, Foundamental and NP-Hard Ventures. They plan to use the funding for “hiring, scaling manufacturing and diversifying the manner of bricks/blocks its robots are capable of handling.” according to an article on TechCrunch.
