Construction Robotics Startup Toggle Raises $8 Million in Series A Funding
Led by Tribeca Venture Partners, the new funding will help to scale Toggle’s full stack robotics and automation rebar solution and expand the company’s footprint across the U.S. and Canada
New York, NY (June 29, 2021) — Toggle, a leading construction robotics company using automation to optimize rebar assembly for reinforced concrete construction, today announced the closing of an $8 million Series A funding round. The new funding will allow Toggle to scale their production capacity, including opening a new, 50,000 square-foot production facility and growing the team. Tribeca Venture Partners led the round of financing, and is joined by Blackhorn Ventures, Point72, New York State and Twenty Seven Ventures.
“At a time when global construction is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, Toggle offers a way to add capacity while saving time and cost on some of the largest types of projects. We are especially grateful for our partners who are helping us to bring new tools and approaches to the fundamental building block of our built environment with a focus on renewable energy and sustainable urban development,” said Toggle CEO, Daniel Blank.
Founded in 2016 by Daniel Blank and Ian Cohen, Toggle’s software and hardware technology works in conjunction with industrial robots and heavy material handling equipment to increase safety, productivity and precision in the rebar assembly process. Toggle delivers steel reinforcing products at lower cost and faster speed to customers in the construction industry with a focus on shared infrastructure systems like renewable energy and urban highrise buildings.
Toggle has worked on a wide range of construction projects in North America ranging from energy to commercial/residential to precast concrete. Renewable energy has been a particular area of focus due to the foundation structures required to support assets and equipment. Toggle’s work includes a partnership with Miller Bros. in which they collaborated on the development of new battery storage capacity for the Philadelphia Navy Yard Microgrid, a project which was the first of its kind in the nation. Another area of focus has been on pre-assembly of highrise building columns, particularly on projects that may require these critical structural components in the hundreds or even thousands of pieces. Among Toggle’s partners in this segment is Salit Steel, one of the largest rebar companies in Canada.
“We’re excited to work with Dan and the Toggle team on their mission to bring robotic automation to the construction industry. Reinforced concrete is one of the most consumed products globally, with the rebar process at its core. By applying machine learning and robotics to this process, Toggle can massively reduce cost and improve worker safety in this $500B/year market,” said Chip Meakem, Managing Partner at Tribeca Venture Partners.
“Toggle is a perfect fit with Blackhorn’s investment thesis for modular or prefabricated construction. It is capital light, with high gross margins, making it highly resilient to the lumpy and fluctuating demand cycles that characterize construction. It’s solution is applicable to residential, commercial, infrastructure and industrial construction, making it even more resilient to sub-sectoral downturns. The hardware and software stacks have been modularized, and the solution can now scale rapidly. The management team is talented, passionate, focused, adaptable and brings together a powerful combination of domain expertise, manufacturing automation expertise and ability to execute. So, Blackhorn Ventures is very excited to join this investment syndicate that can help to power the company to scale,” said Ray Levitt, Operating Partner, Blackhorn Ventures.
The construction industry has been undergoing a major transformation to adopt digital technology as well as address resiliency and sustainability within existing trades and practices. Reinforced concrete is the fundamental building block of cities and infrastructure, so the steel reinforcement that provides its structural integrity is a natural place to start this evolution.
About Toggle
Toggle is building new technology to accelerate construction timelines, save cost and improve worker safety for the world’s most ubiquitous building material: reinforced concrete. Toggle’s patent-pending full stack robotics and automation solution for rebar assembly represents a new approach to building with rebar through a completely digital production process. Toggle’s mission is to build world class robotics and automation solutions for a wide range of physical fabrication and assembly applications in large scale urban and infrastructure construction. The company was founded in 2016, is headquartered in New York and is a startup alumni of the URBAN-X Accelerator and the Consortium for Research and Robotics at Pratt Institute. Toggle’s investors include Tribeca Venture Partners, Blackhorn Ventures, Point72 Ventures, Mark Cuban, Urban Us, Twenty Seven Ventures and New York State.
For more information, visit: https://www.toggle.is/
Press Contact:
Pakelody Cheam
pakelody.cheam@berlinrosen.com
