Mark Cuban Invests in Rebar Tying Robot

Courtesy of Toggle

Toggle, a construction robotics startup based out of Brooklyn, NY, recently secured $3 million in seed funding that included investments from noted investor and business owner Mark Cuban.

Toggle is currently a 15-person team working primarily on developing robots that fabricate and assemble rebar. Toggle supplies cut, bent, and preassembled rebar to building and infrastructure builders who use the material as the backbone for reinforced concrete.

“Reinforced concrete is the most common building material in all of construction,” Toggle’s CEO Daniel Bank says in a video. “And the process for putting together rebar, which is found on every construction site, is highly manual labor intensive and very inefficient… Our solution is to introduce robotics into this process.”

According to TechCrunch, Toggle plans on using the funding they’ve received in this seed round to grow out their team as well as further R&D of their technology. The startup is currently working on developing further software, hardware, and services centered around industrial robots and automation.

The automation of the construction industry is something to keep an eye on in the coming years as technologies develop and become viable options for jobs that would traditionally require manual labor. If the industry does not become more proficient at appealing to the next generation of workers, robotic technology may be a potential solution to the growing labor shortage.