An unpopular robot company completed its PreA round of financing. It was a startup started by a senior executive of a listed company.

Recently, the construction robot company Fontan Robotics announced the completion of a PreA round of financing worth tens of millions of yuan. This round of financing was exclusively invested by Kinzon Capital, and the funds will be used for product research and development, manufacturing and commercial promotion.

As a construction maniac, my country's total output value of the construction industry has reached 29.3 trillion yuan as early as 2021, and has maintained an annual growth rate of about 10%. It is expected to be close to 50 trillion yuan in ten years, and there will be a shortage of tens of millions of construction workers. Using automation to solve the "brick moving" problem is an irreversible trend. According to the forecast data of China Research Network, in 2021, the global smart building market size will be 67.6 billion US dollars, and this figure is expected to exceed 320 billion US dollars in 2029.

Founded in May 2022, Fengtan Robotics is a company founded by Li Zike, who has more than ten years of experience in the construction information industry. He has served as deputy general manager, chief marketing officer, general manager of the construction division, and general manager of the BIM division of Pinming Technology, a company listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. It is reported that the construction safety calculation software that he participated in the research and development and commercial operation currently has the largest market share in this field.

Pinming Technology (688109.SH) is a provider of digital construction technology and products. Its business covers digital cost estimation, construction software, BIM software, smart construction sites, digital enterprises, digital supervision, digital education, artificial intelligence, etc. It is a national high-tech enterprise and a key software enterprise within the national planning layout. In the past three years, its R&D investment has exceeded 27% of its total expenditure.

On the evening of July 4, 2022, Pinming Co., Ltd. issued an announcement that Mr. Li Zike applied to resign from the position of deputy general manager of the company for personal reasons, and will no longer hold any position in the company after his resignation.

It is understood that the founding team of Fengtan Robotics brings together senior technical experts from leading companies in the control field such as Zhongkong, Guozi, and Gaoxian. The core team members have more than 15 years of experience in the field of building informatization and have backgrounds in both building informatization and robotics technology.

The indoor spraying robot with putty and latex paint functions is the main business source of Fontan Robotics, with tens of millions of customer orders and more than 20 project applications. The robot digitizes the construction process of traditional workers through 3D point cloud, artificial intelligence and other technologies, and integrates it into the robot's process library.

A construction worker can complete 80-100 square meters of putty construction in a day, but an indoor spraying robot can speed up by 8-10 times! In addition, the robot can accurately adjust the amount of material and spray evenly, saving 20%-25% of the material cost. This makes construction robots, although expensive, still considered a tool for reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

Prior to this, some engineering equipment companies around the world have also laid out their plans for the construction robot track. For example, the CAT pile robot launched by Caterpillar, the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, is used for tasks such as excavation and piling; the Hadrian X bricklaying robot developed by Fastbrick Robotics can be used for automatic bricklaying to speed up the process of building walls; the Semi-Automated Mason bricklaying robot invented by Construction Robotics is also used to automatically perform bricklaying tasks.

However, construction robots have not yet been popularized in the industry, and the high initial investment and maintenance costs are the main obstacles to the introduction of construction robots. This financing start of Fontan Robotics is a new starting point for domestic construction automation. It is expected that after years of development, the application scenarios of construction robots will increase and a mature construction robot ecosystem will be built.