Buildroid Bags US$2 Million To Launch The UAE’s First Block-Laying Humanoid

Buildroid AI, the US-based robotics startup founded by Slava Solonitsyn and Anton Glance in 2025, has emerged from stealth after securing a US$2 million pre-seed round led by San Francisco–based investor Tim Draper, known for backing companies such as Tesla, SpaceX, Skype, and Robinhood.  

The company marked the announcement with its first public demonstration at the Big Five Construction Conference in Dubai, held from November 24–27, 2025, where it unveiled a block-laying robot built on a Building Information Modeling to Building Execution (BIM-to-BUILD) simulation model aimed at rethinking job-site automation. Buildroid’s first block-laying robot is already being deployed on construction sites in the UAE, where the company is running live pilot programs with contractors. 

Buildroid’s vision centers on simulation-driven construction robotics that use BIM and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital twins to plan, test, and execute field tasks. The approach links the digital building plan directly to real on-site execution, enabling robots to operate from the same models used by architects and engineers. This is supported by an integrated simulation environment powered by Nvidia Omniverse, which allows Buildroid to run full-scale tests of robot kinematics and construction workflows before anything reaches the job site. 

In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Solonitsyn—a Y Combinator alumnus who previously built Mighty Buildings, where he raised more than $100 million and delivered upward of 50 3D-printed homes—said Draper’s belief in Buildroid grew out of a shared vision to finally break open the bottlenecks of global construction. “The main factor for him was his desire to finally find companies that can solve the problems in the housing and construction industries, unlocking the supply of housing at scale,” Solonitsyn told us. “He tracked us through our previous journey at Mighty Buildings and saw how we tried to solve some of the most complex problems, making 3D-printed construction possible, even before Mighty Buildings.” 

He added that Draper’s conviction also stems from the founders’ ability to turn their earlier learnings into a more scalable model. “We brought it into compliance; for instance, he respects the team, the new vision, and the learnings we gained from the previous company, which are now translated into a much more scalable approach.” 

With the fresh capital, Buildroid plans to expand its pilot programs, strengthen its simulation and autonomous systems, and move toward wider commercial deployment. The team will begin with non-load-bearing walls, then expand into interior fit-out and broader construction workflows. Beginning in the second quarter of next year, Buildroid aims to introduce commercially available AI-powered robotic teams in partnership with general contractors, receiving a share of the cost savings generated across projects. 

It is in building automation solutions that lie at the intersection of robotics and construction, while ensuring the buy-in of contractors, that Buildroid’s co-founder believes the company’s strength lies. “Automating the most prominent industries, like construction, is not an easy journey. Still, I believe it has significant potential for next-generation startups and founders because it is one of the most important unsolved problems that AI companies cannot address,” Solonitsyn told us. “You need to really launch those companies in close collaboration with construction companies, which are operating in the real field environment,” he added. 

Central to the company’s approach is its simulation-first infrastructure, which Solonitsyn believes will define the next phase of the robotics construction industry. “When we created this beam, a large-scale simulation, it's essentially how the building is constructed, how it all comes together, step by step, process by process. So, we can run designs, future robot designs, and their kinematics against the digital twin of upcoming construction projects and see which designs perform better in terms of throughput, performance, and other metrics.”  

In utilizing this model, the company is able to test its technology virtually before deploying it in the field. “In our example, for instance, we take a first approach because we want to experiment a lot and test thousands and thousands of hypotheses and scenarios in the virtual mode before deploying anything in the physical world, which is expensive once you start running, especially with hardware robotics. So, this is how AI, for instance, can be used for next-generation companies.” 

In the UAE, Buildroid is focused on targeting the labor-intensive partition-wall segment of the country's $42.75 billion construction market. The company says that its multi-robot strategy can increase productivity by up to tenfold and reduce costs by as much as fourfold compared with manual labor. Over time, the platform is expected to evolve into an operating system for construction robotics, offering contractors simulation-first planning before robotic crews enter the field. 

This momentum comes as the MENA construction market moves toward $401.2 billion by 2030 while global labor shortages deepen. Solonitsyn believes this landscape presents a powerful opening for founders working at the intersection of automation, hardware, and real-world industries. 

With this momentum, stressed Solonitsyn, comes a real opportunity that lies in tackling domains where innovation has been slowest to reach—a shift that he believes will define the next generation of builders and technologies. “There's a lot of uncertainty in the built environment. We see significant productivity gains across many professions now, but occupations that remain close to physical field experience are largely untouched by AI. So, from that perspective, the next wave of great companies will be addressing real industries which are hard to crack,” he concluded. 

Picured in the lead image is Buildroid AI's team. Image courtesy Buildroid AI.