The website for Gropyus AG is absolutely beautiful, shows lots of interesting 3D renderings, and has a video of robotic arms building walls but how they just got investors to put another $109,000,000 into backing this startup is amazing.
Apparently, a million dollars just doesn’t go as far as it did just last year.
Gropyus, founded in Vienna in 2019, offers modular homes. Delivery Hero co-founder Markus Fuhrmann, among others, is behind the company. The special feature: These modules are at least partially made of wood. The start-up was thus able to raise a total of 200 million euros for this idea. Currently, around 300 employees work for Gropyus.
Gropyus AG will use part of the Series B funding to expand its factory in southwest Germany, according to Chief Executive Office Markus Fuhrmann. The Vienna-based company targets an output of 250,000 square meters (2,690,000 sq ft) of timber-based homes per year by 2024. That’s equivalent to about 4,000 one-bedroom apartments.
Affordable housing has become a hot-button issue in many cities as soaring rents stoke public anger. With its pre-fabricated, energy-efficient apartments, Gropyus aims to make it cheaper for landlords to build units and allow them to offer digital services to tenants.
The company has developed what it calls a building operating system to accelerate construction and make the units easier to manage. Last year, it completed a pilot project, building 54 homes within 11 weeks of finishing the concrete foundation.
We wish everyone involved in this investment a great return on their money but I wonder how long it will take before they burn through it and ask for more. This scenario seems to be the rule rather than the exception in offsite construction today.
Gary Fleisher, Contributing Editor
