BlackRock Invests In 3D-Printing Construction Startup Valued At $1.4B
Icon, an Austin-based company specializing in 3D-printed real estate, has reached a $1.4B valuation following its latest funding round, led by a giant of Wall Street.
Unsplash/Avi Waxman The U.S. has a housing shortage of as many as 4.7 million homes, according to some estimates.
BlackRock and Scotland-based investment firm Baillie Gifford co-led a $200M Series D funding round for Icon, according to a release. That brings the company’s total funding to $700M at a $1.4B valuation, CNBC reported.
“We were really looking for an investor group who had helped built-world, physical companies move from early startup proof points to scale,” Jason Ballard, co-founder and CEO of Icon, told CNBC. “It really is just kind of a world class outcome for us.”
The new funding follows Icon’s reveal of a multistory, robotic 3D construction system named Titan, which launched commercially in March. It represents a huge leap in the company’s capabilities, with its previous models only able to build single-story structures.
The new funding for the ascendent tech comes as the homebuilding industry faces mounting costs in the face of rising interest rates, land prices, labor and materials, according to CNBC.
Meanwhile, U.S. housing supply is still falling short, with a gap of up to 4.7 million homes, according to a July report from Zillow. Icon says Titan can cut the average time to build a home down by six weeks, reduce the number of workers needed and bring down overall costs by 40%.
Icon has already scaled quickly and plans to use the funding to scale Titan and expand its existing footprint in Texas, Florida and Washington, D.C. It also plans to bring the tech to new markets.
The company has already built 260 homes and other structures so far this year, Time Magazine reported last month. The firm has also been working with the U.S. military and NASA.
Icon got a boost in May when Wells Fargo announced that it would issue mortgages for buyers of the company’s 3D homes, The Real Deal reported at the time.
Icon is on pace to grow revenue fourfold this year and double that next year, and it has hopes for a potential future initial public offering, Ballard said.
The company has previously used its 3D printers on its own projects, including a 100-home community 27 miles north of Austin developed with homebuilder Lennar.
Industries like real estate and construction that are hard to change often stand to gain the most when they do so, Baillie Gifford Private Companies Investment Manager Luke Ward said in a statement.
“The construction system that Icon has developed over the last decade is compelling, not just because it brings new technologies to bear, but because it works with, rather than against, the business realities that shape a project’s success too,” he said.
Source: www.bisnow.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.