Origin, a US-based startup that builds autonomous robots for interior construction work, has raised USD 20 million, or about Rs 189 crore, in a funding round co-led by Accel and Zacua Ventures. The company is emerging from stealth mode with the raise.
The round also drew participation from Unilazer Ventures, Schema Ventures and Z21. Angel investors from Anduril, Skild AI, 1X and Tesla joined as well. Zacua Ventures founding partner Vivin Hegde has joined the Origin board as a director. Origin did not disclose its valuation or the split of the round.
The funding and the investors
Accel and Zacua Ventures co-led the round, which Origin describes as a major fundraise since it was founded in 2025. Zacua Ventures is a fund focused on construction technology, and its founding partner Vivin Hegde joins the board as a director.
What the OG-1 robot does
Origin’s flagship machine is the OG-1, which handles wall finishing tasks. It applies compound, sands surfaces and primes walls without a human operator. Origin says its robots work three times faster than a human.
The OG-1 runs on a proprietary foundation model that the company calls a construction action model. It has three parts. A reasoning system plans complex sub-tasks, an action policy helps the robot navigate on its own, and a controller handles feedback-driven movement. Origin says this combination lets the robot work on an unprepared live site, rather than repeat a single fixed motion. The company plans to add taping, drywall installation, drilling and conduit installation over time.
Origin says it has already deployed robots at construction sites in New York, within 10 months of being founded. Its machines are also being used across commercial spaces, apartments, data centres, hotels and warehouses.
Read more: Bengaluru space robotics startup Cosmochute raised USD 1.5 million in pre-seed funding, another early-stage robotics round that newzshort covered recently.
Use of funds and expansion plans
The fresh capital will mainly go into deploying the robotic fleet and running large-scale pilots with customers in the United States and Europe. Origin says it is preparing pilots with two large drywall finishing contractors in the US. The rest of the money will go into exploring new uses for the machines.
Origin plans to have 150 robots deployed by the end of 2027. It is also exploring pilots in Germany, Sweden, France and Saudi Arabia. Zacua is expected to help with that expansion through its network of contractors, developers and manufacturers.
Why construction robotics is drawing money
Labour shortages, rather than labour costs, are the main reason buyers are looking at construction robots now. A survey published by the Associated General Contractors of America in September 2026 found that worker shortages delayed projects at 42 percent of the US construction firms surveyed.
Funding is following that demand. A report by Zacua Ventures, published with Hilti Ventures and 94 Ventures, said construction robotics startups attracted USD 1.36 billion in venture funding in the first three quarters of 2025, against USD 612 million for the whole of 2024. The global construction robotics market is projected to become a USD 12 billion opportunity by 2036.
Background and the founders
Origin was founded in 2025 by Yogesh Ghaturle, Ashish Daga and Tushar Makkar, and is headquartered in San Francisco. Ghaturle, the chief executive, previously founded Perpule, a cloud-based point-of-sale startup that Amazon acquired in 2021. Makkar leads autonomy at Origin and earlier worked at the AI company Eightfold AI. Daga leads hardware and has worked at the digital pathology startup Morphle Labs.
Ghaturle described the company as a time machine for construction, and said wall finishing and painting are only the first trades. The stated ambition is to automate the full range of interior trades so contractors can build faster and with consistent quality.
What happens next
The immediate task is to turn early deployments into repeat orders. Origin has to show that its robots work reliably on live sites before the 2027 fleet target can be tested. The company said the new capital will support hiring and deployment as it moves from pilots to wider commercial use.
