- Built Robotics, a company developing AI guidance systems for transforming heavy equipment into autonomous robots, announced it raised $33 million
Built Robotics — a company that develops AI guidance systems to transform heavy equipment into autonomous robots — has just announced a number of major milestones. The company recently closed $33 million in Series B funding led by Next47, a new global venture fund backed by Siemens. Including this round, Built has raised a total of $48 million.
Building Ventures and existing Built Robotics investors like Founders Fund, NEA, Lemnos, and Presidio Ventures are also joining the round.
And Built Robotics also announced more than $100 million in customer commitments for its autonomous construction solutions.
With this round of funding, Built Robotics is planning to scale its fleet of autonomous robots, expand into new construction verticals, and develop tools for supporting the next generation of equipment operators.
“The shortage of qualified labor is an industry-wide challenge right now, and finding skilled workers is even more difficult on large-scale remote infrastructure projects. Our robotic equipment is able to shoulder some of the load by assisting with basic, repetitive tasks, freeing up human operators to focus on more complex activities,” said Noah Ready-Campbell, the CEO of Built Robotics. “I’m thrilled to be working with T.J. and Next47, as well as our existing investors, in writing the next chapter of Built Robotics.”
In conjunction with this funding round, Built Robotics also added Next47 partner T.J. Rylander to its board of directors.
“We’re excited to be partnering with Built Robotics on this significant milestone. They have proven market appetite and demand for the technology and have deployed working robots with leading construction companies around the country,” added Rylander. “We believe Built is poised to lead this market and catalyze deployment of this technology across construction applications.”
Built’s technology is known for transforming construction equipment — including excavators, bulldozers, and skid steers — into fully autonomous robots. And the automated guidance systems can be installed on existing equipment from any manufacturer while still maintaining complete manual operation capabilities.
This upgraded equipment is able to perform common tasks fully autonomously like digging trenches, excavating foundations, and grading building pads. And the autonomous fleet can be managed via a web-based platform — which allows remote equipment operators to supervise the robots.
Built’s current fleet of robots have excavated 100,000 tons of material on projects like wind farms, housing developments, and utility solar installations. And in total, equipment upgraded by Built Robotics has operated for more than 7,500 hours with a perfect safety record (equivalent to 350,000 miles of testing for self-driving cars).
