Dataform Lab Raises Seed to Drive Automation in Offsite Manufacturing
Construction is one of the largest industries in the economy – its size is measured in GDP terms. However, it remains a laggard in the adoption of automation. Our houses are still being manually 'constructed', not produced by machines...
Offsite manufacturing, i.e. assembling buildings in factories, rather than on-site, is an emerging trend that promises housing that is cheaper and faster to build, without compromising on quality. A substantial part of new housing across big parts of the world is increasingly built offsite.
Moving construction to factories provides a ripe opportunity for putting automation to work. To date, however, leveraging such remains a far cry from reality. Even in some of the most advanced offsite manufacturers, robots and digital transformation are nowhere to be seen.
The underlying reasons why happen to be quite consistent across the industry. To begin with, every building is different, and interpreting its design to shop floor terms remains an arduous process. Moreover, robotic programming requires domain expertise that is hard to access, and is typically performed by third parties, which renders continuous reprogramming practically unattainable. Finally, production planning remains an afterthought, with legacy processes accumulating complexity and switching costs.
Eva Magnisali studied Architecture at Greece's NTUA and Robotics at London's Architectural Association, before embarking on a journey bringing the two fields together. Working alongside design firms, developers and industry vendors, she realized first hand what's keeping the industry stuck in the past, and got to work to bring a practical, forward-looking solution to the market.
Dataform Lab is on a mission to accelerate the adoption of automation in the construction industry. Its software platform translates designs to production drawings and machine code on the spot, while offering state-of-the-art simulation of manufacturing processes, as well as dynamic scheduling to optimize production.
Essentially, the company provides a modern operating system for offsite manufacturing, serving as the automation partner of choice to help manufacturers accelerate their digital transformation roadmap and deliver on their promise to achieve unprecedented efficiencies in construction.
Dataform Lab is already at work in some of the most prominent offsite manufacturers worldwide. The company today announces the completion of a GBP 1.1 million seed round led by Marathon Venture Capital. As part of the round, the team will grow to help accelerate an ambitious product roadmap as well as build up its go-to-market and customer success capabilities.
In a world craving for more and cheaper housing against the widespread construction capacity bottlenecks, Dataform Lab aspires to be the catalyst for digital transformation in construction. Our next homes may come from a fully-automated factory, delivered at a fraction of today's time and cost...
