Surveying robot manufacturer Civ Robotics has announced a US$5m (£4.4m) seed financing round, led by venture capital firms ff Venture Capital and Alley Robotics Ventures, with contribution from Trimble Ventures.
Civ Robotics’ autonomous surveying solution, named CivDot, is an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), built for civil engineering and infrastructure projects.
“The construction industry faces worker shortage challenges, and CivDot is empowering efficiency and safety on the job, while driving projects forward from the start,” said Tom Yeshurun, co-founder and CEO of Civ Robotics.
“Already, Bechtel, a leader in the EPC industry, among a variety of others, has adopted CivDots for surveying.
“Today’s funding demonstrates the opportunity in front of us as a company to construct the world around us.”
According to Oxford Economics, the global construction market was worth more than US$10tn (£8.8tn) in 2020, with US$3.4tn (£3tn) spent on large-scale infrastructure projects. Over the next decade, there will be US$1.2tn (£1tn) in predicted spending on investments in roadways, renewable energy and other large public works projects in the US.
Civ Robotics says the demand for surveyors today exceeds the supply of consultants ready to fill these jobs, driving the push for automation technologies, like its automated surveyor CivDot.
“This round is an example of our proactive model of enabling founders to drive revenues and increase customer lifetime value.
“CivDot is filling a huge labor void that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic and bolstered by the Federal government’s trillion-dollar investments in infrastructure and climate initiatives.
“We look forward to empowering its products to become the most important tool on the construction jobsite,” said Oliver Mitchell, a partner of ff Venture Capital.
The automated CivDot reportedly accurately marks thousands of coordinates per day, while delivering layouts up to eight times faster than manual surveying methods.
Civ Robotics US$5m in seed funding will be dedicated to fuelling sales and marketing, technology development and growth of its US and Tel Aviv teams.
