Construction tech company Automated Architecture (AUAR) has closed £5.1m in funding to make sustainable, affordable housing universally accessible. Its groundbreaking automation and robotics platform and decentralised approach helps homebuilders cut construction costs by 30–40% and removes critical bottlenecks in their value chain. As it enters its next phase of growth, AUAR is scaling its team, expanding its partner ecosystem, and preparing to launch operations across key European markets including Benelux, DACH, and the Nordics.
The construction industry faces mounting pressure from soaring costs, labour shortages, and fragmented and inefficient supply chains. There is currently a 2 billion housing shortage globally, an issue aggravated by the fact that builders can’t profitably increase their capacity with current approaches.
Traditional building techniques are failing to keep pace with demand, and inefficiencies continue to drive up expenses, cut profits and extend project timelines. Across Europe – especially where housing demand is most acute, such as in the UK or Germany – there’s an urgent need for innovative solutions that deliver cost-effective, scalable building methods.
Timber construction presents a significant opportunity to address this crisis, combining speed and affordability with sustainability. However, its potential remains largely untapped due to outdated and wasteful manufacturing approaches. AUAR changes that. Designed for mid-sized homebuilders, AUAR’s solution makes it easy to scale cost-effective timber housing without significant upfront investment or design constraints. Builders rent compact robotic Micro-Factories that locally produce the full timber structure of a home in just 12 hours and reduce on-site labour by up to 75%. AUAR’s MasterBuilder software connects AI-enhanced design directly to robotic production, automating everything from planning to fabrication and adding value throughout the project stack. This results in lower costs, faster builds, greater control over project timelines and ultimately increased capacity for the construction industry.
AUAR was founded in 2019 by Mollie Claypool, CEO, and Gilles Retsin, CTO & Chief Architect, after working together for over a decade researching how robotics, generative design, and AI could radically transform housing and how we live. Their profound understanding of the sector’s challenges and unmet needs enabled them to develop a robust, scalable solution at the heart of what the industry demands today.
The Robotic Micro-Factories developed by AUAR are a breakthrough technology for an industry struggling with a lack of skilled labour and low productivity. These compact, mobile pop-up factories combine robotics with proprietary software to automate the design and construction process, finally making timber construction accessible at scale.
Each Micro-Factory can produce modular timber-frame panels for walls, floors, and roofs which can be quickly assembled on-site to create a variety of home designs. By streamlining on the design-to-manufacture process, AUAR’s solution slashes total construction costs.
This funding round is led by European early-stage venture fund Planet A with participation from Shadow Ventures, Common Magic and Concrete VC. Angel investors in this round include Margarita Skarkou, Carmel Rafaeli, Dorothy Chou, Sandro Gianella, and Luke Appleby. Previous investors Miles Ahead, ABB Robotics Ventures and Nicolas Bearelle also participated.
This funding round marks a pivotal moment for AUAR, driven by the founders’ clear vision and deep-rooted expertise in the construction and robotics industries. Over the past year, the company turned that vision into tangible progress by shipping two of its robotic micro-factories to the US as part of its North American expansion, in partnership with Rival Holdings.
