Toronto-based manufacturing startup Promise Robotics, which makes home builder robots and hopes to help increase Canada’s scarce housing supply, has unveiled plans to open its second factory, a 60,000 sq. ft. facility, at an existing warehouse in Calgary.
The plant is expected to start production in the summer, and the company hopes to make up to 1 million sq. ft. of housing per year. Promise’s current factory is based in Edmonton. In both cases, the company claims to support the local economy by drawing on regional labour, materials, and supply chains.
Promise claims that a single-family unit can be built in about six hours with the help of its robots.
Promise Robotics’ strategy revolves around a factory-as-a-service offsite construction model. Builders can turn blueprints into manufacturing instructions for robots, which produce homes that are ready to assemble onsite. The production platforms can roll out at existing sites or temporary offsite locations, and make both single-family and multiplex homes.
The robots theoretically help companies build houses more quickly and efficiently, but without the cost and technical knowledge hurdles that tend to prevent adoption of automation. Promise claims that, with the help of its robots, a single-family unit can be built in about six hours. That’s about 70 percent faster than the time it takes using conventional methods.
The second factory represents a significant expansion for Promise. In an interview with BetaKit last year, CEO Ramtin Attar said he and CTO Reza Nasseri founded the company in 2021 to address the homebuilding challenges they saw even before the housing crisis began dominating the news cycle. In October 2023, the startup secured $15 million USD in Series A funding to accelerate its efforts. Attar noted at the time that the second factory was likely to be ready “early,” and that Promise was securing more projects.
Since the company’s inception, the housing shortage has become acute. Statistics Canada reported a record high of 650,000 home construction workers in 2023, but the output of 240,267 new homes was “below” the potential 400,000 for the year, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
The federal government has since outlined a housing plan meant to construct 3.87 million new homes by 2031, or 2 million more than the CMHC’s forecast. If fully implemented, the strategy would offer loans for building efforts (including apartments), funding for affordable housing, improved renters’ protections, and better use of public and “under-utilized” lands.
Promise believes its robots can complement this housing crisis solution. In a statement last summer, it claimed that its factory service would “rapidly increase supply, productivity, and capacity” in the industry, helping the country keep up with demand.
Feature image courtesy Promise Robotics.