Lukas Ziegler (@lukas_m_ziegler)

Another awesome robotics company raised funds in Europe. 🇪🇺 This time a company that is shipping robots that build! @BuildMonumental has raised $32M Series B led by Khosla Ventures, and its fleet of autonomous bricklaying robots has already built more than 100 real structures across Europe. Houses. A school. A community centre. A hotel. Canal walls. Founded by @salar al Khafaji and Sebastiaan Visser, the co-founders of data visualisation firm Silk, acquired by Palantir in 2016, this is a team that knows how to build and sell a company. The technology is serious: → Fleet of 100+ electric autonomous robots operating on live job sites today → Advanced sensors, computer vision and small cranes laying brick to millimetre precision → All driven by Atrium, their proprietary AI software platform → Nearly half of all homes built in the last three months alone, pace is compounding fast The business model is also worth taking a look at. Contractors don't buy the robots. They hire Monumental as an autonomous subcontractor and pay for finished wall. So in the end you only pay for the output. This is the same forward-deployed engineering model Palantir pioneered in software. Monumental brought it to physical robotics years before anyone else in the industry caught on. The backdrop makes this urgent. US construction is short 200,000-400,000 workers every month. Since 1945, US manufacturing productivity rose eightfold. Construction gained just 10%, and has actually declined since the 1960s. LET'S MAKE CONSTRUCTION BUSINESSES SEXY AGAIN! 🧱 ~~ ♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news →

This is the capital of robotics! 🌁 Silicon Valley is home to so many physical AI companies that you could spend a month visiting them and still not see even 10% of them (trust me, I tried). It took me 3x to create this map as it did to create any other. And the truth is, it's still incomplete. Let’s see why this is the case. So, the Bay Area is the world's leading ecosystem for robotics startups, bringing together top AI talent, top universities, experienced founders, and unmatched access to capital. The region is anchored by Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley, two of the world's top universities for AI and robotics. They produce a constant stream of researchers, founders, and breakthrough technologies. The Bay Area is also home to many of the companies shaping the future of robotics and AI, including @Figure_robot, @physical_int , and major AI labs such as @OpenAI. This concentration of talent makes it easy for startups to recruit experienced engineers and collaborate with leaders in embodied AI. Not mentioning that it  is also home to leaders such as @NVIDIARobotics , whose headquarters and leadership in AI chips power much of today's robotics revolution, and @Tesla, whose work on autonomous driving and humanoid robots has created a deep pool of robotics, AI, and manufacturing talent. Perhaps its biggest advantage is access to capital and ambition. The Bay Area has the world's deepest network of venture capital firms, serial entrepreneurs, and technical leaders who are willing to fund bold, long-term robotics companies. In the comments I'll post the companies from the ecosystem. ‼️ Note that Bay Area has >300 robotics companies, research labs, and innovation hubs, so this is a curated selection of the notable product companies, not an exhaustive census! P.S. I'm constantly working on improving these maps, so if your company is missing, please DM me with basic info about the co, and I will include it in the next release. ~~ ♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news →