Brick-Laying Robot Company Monumental Raises $32 Million and Sets Its Sights on the U.S.
The Amsterdam startup's machines have already built walls for more than 100 homes in Europe. Now, armed with fresh funding, it wants to tackle America's construction worker shortage.
Key points
- Monumental, an Amsterdam-based construction robotics company, raised $32 million in Series B funding in 2025.
- Its robots have built walls for more than 100 homes in the Netherlands and the U.K., plus a school, a hotel, a community centre and canal walls.
- Khosla Ventures led the round, with Hummingbird and Plural also participating.
- The U.S. Runs roughly 200,000 to 400,000 construction workers short every month, according to Monumental.
- Monumental plans to launch in the U.S. Later in 2025 and extend its robots beyond bricklaying.
There is a simple, stubborn problem facing construction right now: not enough hands to do the work. Monumental, a Dutch startup, thinks robots can help fill that gap.
The company builds and operates electric, autonomous machines that lay bricks on active construction sites. They read digital building plans, pick up bricks with millimetre precision, and apply mortar in sequence. Atrium, a software platform that acts as the brain coordinating all robot movements and decisions, runs the whole operation. Monumental's own operators stay on site to replenish materials and intervene whenever something unexpected arises.
This week, as first reported by The Robot Report, Monumental announced the $32 million Series B. Khosla Ventures led the investment, with Hummingbird, Plural and others joining.
Why does this matter for people who need homes?
The shortage is real. American home builders face a projected shortfall of 2.2 million workers over the next three years, and the industry runs short by between 200,000 and 400,000 workers each month. That gap slows construction and pushes up housing costs.
Monumental's pitch is that its robots take on the repetitive, physically grinding parts of bricklaying, freeing skilled tradespeople for work that genuinely requires human judgement. Rather than selling machines to contractors, it acts as a subcontractor: builders pay for finished walls, carrying none of the cost or risk of owning specialised equipment.
CEO Salar al Khafaji is direct about the goal. "Our goal isn't to replace people, but to give the industry the additional capacity it desperately needs," he told The Robot Report.
The proof of concept is already standing. Walls for over 100 homes have gone up across Europe, alongside a school, a hotel, a community centre and canal walls. "Our Series B was raised off of real-world success," al Khafaji said. "Real construction sites are the best R&D lab."
We covered a comparable bet on construction robotics on 16 July, when TerraFirma raised $115 million to put robot excavators on building sites. That deal, like this one, was built on the same premise: a severe skilled-labour shortage that contractors can't hire their way out of.
Should you worry about the U.S. Rollout?
Expanding into America brings real complications. Building codes and labour structures shift from state to state, making the market more fragmented than Europe. Al Khafaji says Monumental already adapts across different customers and practices in Europe, and that its software-first approach makes local customisation practical.
Beyond bricklaying, the new funding will support a broader range of construction tasks, though exactly what those are hasn't been confirmed yet. Watch whether Monumental names a U.S. Pilot site before year's end: that will be the first real test of whether European results travel.
