Dive Brief:
- Icon, which creates large robots that 3D-print structures, raised $200 million in a Series D funding round, according to a Tuesday announcement from the firm. The round was co-led by investment management firm Baillie Gifford with funds managed by BlackRock.
- Icon’s 3D-printing tech targets customers in both residential and nonresidential construction. Its forthcoming, multistory Titan machine, which carries a list price of $899,000, will be capable of 3D-printing structures with a 27-foot build height, per its website.
- With the funding, Icon will initiate the production and manufacturing of Titan at its Austin, Texas, factory, according to the announcement. It will also open a large-scale research and development facility in the city.
Dive Insight:
Icon divides its business into three segments: Build, which handles construction; Tech, which manages its software and building platform; and Prime, which is its dedicated defense and space division that caters to the military and government agencies.
Icon’s offerings also include its proprietary FormCrete, the material used to build its structures, which lists for $620 per cubic yard on its website, along with BuildOS, which manages the firm’s construction system.
Icon has built more than 270 homes and structures across five states and two countries, according to the announcement. The U.S. Army contracted the company in January to 3D-print 10 barracks at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas for $62.8 million. Icon said the development was the largest deployment of robotic construction technology in Department of Defense history. It previously built a 3,800-square-foot barracks at the Camp Swift Training Center in Bastrop, Texas for the National Guard.
Icon has also worked with the federal government on space programs, particularly its plan to return to the Moon via the Artemis program. In 2022, NASA awarded the firm $57.2 million for its research into using lunar regolith, or moon dust, as a 3D printing component.
"Construction automation has crossed from potential into proven reality,” Jason Ballard, Icon’s co-founder and CEO, said in the announcement. “This round puts that reality in builders' hands: more Titan systems deployed across the country, deeper capability in housing, commercial, and defense, and continued work on the technology that will one day build humanity's first structures beyond Earth.”
Indeed, large-scale 3D printing has piqued the interest of not just governments and homebuilders, but major retailers in the private sector.
Last November, another 3D-printing giant, Alquist, announced it was scaling its portfolio with more than a dozen projects for retailers that include Walmart.
