Origin Raises $20M to Scale Robots for Interior Construction Tasks

Origin, a startup specializing in physical artificial intelligence for construction, announced it has raised $20 million in funding to advance its mission of automating interior building work. The funding round was co-led by Accel and Zacua Ventures, with additional contributions from Unilazer Ventures, Schema Ventures, Z21, and angel investors from companies like Anduril, Skild AI, 1X, and Tesla.

The capital will be used to expand the deployment of Origin’s flagship robot, OG-1, and to develop a larger fleet. The company plans to conduct extensive pilot programs with major drywall-finishing contractors in the United States and initiate projects in Europe and the Middle East, including Germany, Sweden, France, and Saudi Arabia. These pilots are designed to test the robot’s capabilities and extend its functions to other interior trades beyond drywall finishing.

Vivin Hegde, founding partner at Zacua Ventures, emphasized Origin’s practical approach to construction robotics. "Too many construction robots perform well in a lab and fail within a week on a live job site. Origin built for the job site from the start, and it shows in the results: the robot works, crews trust it and the company can manufacture it at volume," he said.

OG-1 is a multi-purpose robot that autonomously performs various interior construction tasks. Its current capabilities focus on wall finishing, where it applies joint compound, sands surfaces, and primes walls to a professional standard, all without human intervention. The robot operates on a three-wheeled base with 360-degree situational awareness and can safely work alongside human crews without requiring isolated work zones. It can also function at heights up to 14 feet and uses real-time force control to maintain consistent pressure during sanding and other contact-intensive activities.

Accel investor Anagh Prasad noted the significance of Origin’s approach. "We believe a foundational physical AI model built specifically for construction is the right approach to win in this massive market, where robotics has barely scratched the surface," he said.

Origin’s technology is powered by its proprietary Construction Action Model, a foundation AI model tailored for construction workflows. This system integrates three main elements: a reasoning module that plans and manages complex construction tasks, an action policy that enables autonomous navigation and tool use, and a controller that converts decisions into precise robotic movements through feedback mechanisms. The model has been trained using detailed simulations alongside real-world data collected from active job sites.

Since its founding in early 2025, Origin has maintained a strong focus on real-world deployment. The company deployed its initial robots on construction projects in New York within just 10 months. Presently, OG-1 is active in a variety of settings including commercial buildings, multifamily housing, data centers, hotels, and warehouses.

Co-founder and CEO Yogesh Ghaturle highlighted the gap Origin aims to fill in the construction industry. "Over the last century, construction has only mechanized or automated heavy exterior work. But much of the skilled work inside the building, which accounts for more than 65 percent of the construction timelines, is still done by hand. We started Origin to bring physical AI to interior trades," he explained.

A recent report from Zacua Ventures forecasts rapid growth in construction robotics funding, noting that the sector attracted $1.36 billion in venture capital during the first three quarters of 2025—a 125 percent increase compared to the $612 million raised in all of 2024. Despite this surge, robots still represent less than 0.03 percent of total global construction spending, indicating significant room for expansion.

Origin is preparing for large-scale manufacturing and aims to deploy 150 OG-1 units by the end of 2027. Future development plans include expanding the robot’s abilities to cover additional interior trades such as taping, drywall installation, drilling, and conduit installation, all utilizing the same hardware platform and AI model.

The startup was established by Yogesh Ghaturle, Ashish Daga, and Tushar Makkar. Ghaturle previously founded Perpule, acquired by Amazon in 2021. Makkar brings over a decade of AI expertise, having led AI teams at Eightfold AI, while Daga leads hardware engineering with prior experience in precision automation at Morphle Labs.

Ghaturle reflected on their go-to-market strategy: "We spent 18 months building before coming out of stealth because we wanted to prove what our robots could do on real job sites. Today, our robots are already working at three times human speed, delivering human-level quality and generalizing across different site conditions." Origin’s progress signals a notable step forward in automating skilled interior construction tasks, a segment that has historically been resistant to robotics integration.