en.Wedoany.com Reported - Monumental, a construction automation technology company headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, announced it has secured $32 million in Series B funding, led by Khosla Ventures with participation from existing investors Plural and Hummingbird.

The funds will be used to expand the hardware and software engineering team, increase the number of robots deployed in Europe and the UK, deepen business operations in the UK market, expand the types of construction tasks the robots can handle, and support entry into the US market.

The UK construction industry faces a labor shortage. The Home Builders Federation estimates that to meet the government's target of building 1.5 million new homes, the UK needs at least an additional 20,000 bricklayers, while only about 1,990 apprenticeships were completed in 2024.

Monumental is filling this gap with a fleet of over 150 robots. These robots are already operating autonomously on construction sites, acting as subcontractors.

Salar al Khafaji, co-founder and CEO of Monumental, stated that there are not enough people globally to build the required infrastructure, and this shortage cannot be solved by software or performative robots.

What construction sites need are machines that can lay real bricks to specification around the clock, which is exactly what the fleet is doing.

He said that each deployed robot expands the industry's construction capacity, bringing the goal of building affordable, customized buildings and infrastructure closer to reality. Khosla's investment will help the company deploy more robots in more countries and expand operations beyond bricklaying.

Monumental's electric autonomous robots are equipped with advanced sensors, computer vision, and cranes, capable of laying bricks and mortar with millimeter precision, controlled by its AI platform, Atrium.

The company has built walls for over 100 homes in the Netherlands and the UK, in addition to a school, a community center, a hotel, and canal walls. This proves that autonomous construction solutions are viable.

Progress is accelerating, with nearly half of these homes built in the past three months alone, compared to just eight in the previous quarter.

Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, noted that construction costs are rising sharply, while the industry itself has remained largely unchanged for decades. This combination has led to a housing crisis—people know how to build, but the process is too expensive and slow.

He believes Monumental is solving this problem by bringing robotics into the physical world, with evidence already in place: canal walls, homes, schools—100 structures built by robots. Beautiful buildings built at scale don't have to be as expensive as they are today.

Construction is a major industry that modern technology has barely touched. Since 1945, manufacturing productivity has increased more than eightfold, while construction productivity has only improved by about 10% and has declined since the 1960s. Construction speed has not kept pace with demand growth, leading to a severe housing shortage in the UK. The Centre for Policy Studies estimates a shortfall of 6.5 million homes, with only 446 homes per 1,000 people, ranking second to last in Europe.

Monumental is providing capabilities the industry struggles to hire for, building the homes the country needs while enabling workers to transition to safer, higher-skilled roles operating robots.

Sten Tamkivi, partner at Plural, stated that since their initial investment, Monumental has become one of the most widely deployed autonomous construction operators globally, solving a global problem from the heart of Europe. This is thanks to the right team using the right approach to bridge the gap.

Contractors engage Monumental as a subcontractor and pay for completed walls rather than purchasing machines, eliminating the financial and technical risks of owning and operating equipment. This model is based on outcome-based pricing and forward deployment, with clients paying for walls built.

Salar al Khafaji and Sebastiaan Visser previously co-founded Silk (acquired by Palantir in 2016), and Monumental is the first company to bring Palantir's forward-deployed engineering model into the robotics field.

Monumental operates construction projects in the Netherlands and the UK. It has recently deepened its UK operations through a dedicated country manager and a growing local team, and is expanding into international markets, with plans for initial pilot projects in the US.