Luxembourg-based Leko Labs, a construction startup that’s developing sustainable wood-based building materials as an alternative to steel and concrete and applying automation to construction methods, has closed a $21 million Series A round of funding. The raise is led by urban sustainability-focused fund 2150 with participation from Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, Tencent, AMAVI, Rise PropTech Fund, Extantia and Freigeist. Construction is of course an extremely dirty business. Not just literally, given the earth and dust that inevitably gets churned up — but in carbon emissions terms: Per a 2017 report by the World Green Building Council, building and construction activities jointly account for 39% of energy-related CO2 emissions when upstream power generation is included.
Leko Labs’ claim is that its more sustainable construction method can save “thousands” of tonnes of CO2 versus traditional approaches. Additionally, the startup says its engineered wood can yield superior insulation properties for buildings that also have thinner walls — meaning both better heating/cooling performance (it says its wall system can reduce heating/cooling needs by up to 87%) and up to 10% more floor space versus traditionally constructed buildings. The company has also developed a software platform to help automate and optimize the building design process, using algorithms which it says are able to reduce wood usage versus traditional buildings (by up to 50%), as well as ensuring better thermal, acoustic, and static properties. Leko says the Series A funding will be used to scale its software and robotics construction system throughout Europe — including in Germany, the Nordics, and the U.K., while still supplying finished walls from its factory in Luxembourg.