Civ Robotics has closed a $5 million seed funding round led by ff Venture Capital and Alley Robotics Ventures, with participation from Trimble Ventures.
Civ Robotics’ autonomous surveying solution, CivDot, is an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), designed for civil engineering and infrastructure projects, such as solar farms, roadways, data centers and power plants to name a few.
Tom Yeshurun, co-founder and CEO of Civ Robotics, says: “The construction industry faces worker shortage challenges, and CivDot is empowering efficiency and safety on the job, while driving projects forward from the start.
“Already, Bechtel, a leader in the EPC industry, among a variety of others, has adopted CivDots for surveying. Today’s funding demonstrates the opportunity in front of us as a company to construct the world around us.”
Aviad Almagor, vice president, technology innovation at Trimble and technology advisor for Trimble Ventures, says: “We are focused on investing in companies that are seeking to address important challenges in markets that align with Trimble’s mission of transforming the way the world works.
“Civ Robotics technology supports surveyors and field workers and helps remove the burden of repetitive and risky work.
“Civ Robotics uses Trimble’s high-precision GNSS positioning technology and surveying software to improve productivity and increase safety. This is an exciting opportunity to help accelerate innovation in autonomy, surveying and construction.”
According to Oxford Economics, the global construction market exceeded $10 trillion in 2020, with $3.4 trillion spent on large infrastructure projects.
Over the next decade, thanks to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed nearly a year ago, $1.2 trillion will be spent on investments in roadways, renewable energy, and other large public works projects in the US.
The demand for surveyors today exceeds the supply of consultants ready to fill these jobs, driving the push for automation technologies, like CivDot.
Oliver Mitchell, partner of ff Venture Capital, says: “This round is an example of our proactive model of enabling founders to drive revenues and increase customer lifetime value.
“CivDot is filling a huge labor void that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic and bolstered by the Federal government’s trillion-dollar investments in infrastructure and climate initiatives. We look forward to empowering its products to become the most important tool on the construction jobsite.”
CivDot marks thousands of coordinates per day precisely and efficiently, while delivering layouts up to 8X faster than traditional (manual) surveying methods.
Abe Murray, managing partner of Alley Robotics Ventures, says: “Civ Robotics is building and deploying groundbreaking solutions to critical problems faced by the construction industry.
“We invest in companies that solve the world’s problems with robotics and industrial automation. Civ Robotics combines deep technical innovation with a proven ability to deploy its solution in the real world.”
Civ Robotics $5 million seed funding will fuel sales and marketing, technology development and growth of its team both in the US and Tel Aviv, Israel, where the company’s research and development is based.
