An Austrian-based BuiltWorlds member startup that aims to streamline housing construction raised about €100 million ($109 million) in fresh cash from a group of investors led by Vonovia SE, Germany’s largest landlord.
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 output of 250,000 square meters 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.
The cooperation with Vonovia may include the construction of new apartments and using Gropyus’s software to manage homes. Including the latest investment, which also involved existing shareholders such as Sweden’s FAM AB, the Austrian startup has raised more than €200 million.
“We bring a very scalable, serial, industrialized approach that can help control construction costs,” Fuhrmann, one of the founders of Delivery Hero SE, said in an interview.
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