Texas startup receives $9M to build affordable 3-D printed houses

High-tech homes

A 3-D printed home could be built in 48 hours for only $10,000. Photo courtesy of ICON Build

In the not-too-distant future, a Texas company's 3-D printed homes will be popping up across the world for a fraction of the cost of traditional homes.

"It's our mission at ICON to reimagine the approach to homebuilding and construction and make affordable, dignified housing available to everyone throughout the world," says Jason Ballard, co-founder and CEO of Austin-based ICON LLC. "We're in the middle of a global housing crisis, and making old approaches a little better is not solving the problem."

The 3-D printed homes startup just raked in $9 million in seed funding from a host of investors, including Fort Worth-based homebuilding giant D.R. Horton; Vulcan Capital, a Seattle investment firm launched by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, who died October 15; Austin startup accelerator Capital Factory; Austin real estate developer Cielo Property Group; and San Francisco venture capital firm Oakhouse Partners, which is the lead investor.

At this point, ICON executives aren't sure when their homes will be popping up around town. However, Ballard tells CultureMap, "serious conversations" are underway about bringing these homes to Austin and other places around the world.

In March, ICON reaped tons of press when it unveiled a 350-square-foot 3-D home at SXSW — the first home of its kind to receive a construction permit in the U.S. At the time, ICON executives said the home — constructed of concrete and printed in less than 48 hours by 3-D printing robots — cost less than $10,000. By contrast, the median price in September 2018 of a single-family home in the Austin metro area was $302,250.

ICON's first batch of homes is planned for a project in impoverished El Salvador that's being developed in conjunction with New Story, a San Francisco nonprofit that seeks to eradicate homelessness. The first homes there are scheduled to be printed next year.

ICON is targeting a per-home cost of $4,000 in El Salvador. Relying on technology upgrades, ICON hopes to create each 3-D home in less than 24 hours.

"While prices to print homes will vary from country to country and state to state," Ballard says, "the big takeaway is that downloading and printing a home has the potential to cost half of standard construction costs."

Homes at the development in El Salvador will measure 600 to 800 square feet — around the size of a typical one-bedroom apartment. Eventually, ICON aims to print homes in the 1,500- to 2,000-square-foot range.

Among the advantages of 3-D printed homes cited by ICON are:

  • Speedy construction
  • No manual labor
  • Little generation of leftover construction materials
  • "Tremendous" design freedom

There's a positive environmental impact with this construction process as well.

"Conventional construction is slow, fragmented, wasteful, and has poor thermal properties that increase energy use, increase operating costs, and decrease comfort," Ballard says. "Also, conventional materials like drywall and particleboard are some of the least resilient materials ever invented."

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This story originally appeared on CultureMap.

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Houston humanoid robotics startup Persona AI hires new strategy leader

new hire

Houston-based Persona AI, a two-year-old startup that develops robots for heavy industry, has hired an automation and robotics professional as its head of commercial strategy.

In his new position, Michael Perry will focus on building Persona AI’s business development operations, coordinating with strategic partners and helping early adopters of the company’s humanoids. Target customers include offshore platforms, shipyards, steel mills and construction sites.

Perry previously served as vice president of business development at Boston Dynamics, where he led market identification for robotics, and as an executive at DJI. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Chinese and government studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

“Now is the perfect time to join Persona AI as we rapidly close the gap between what’s possible in the lab versus what’s driving real commercial value,” Perry says. “Building industry-hardened humanoid hardware and production-deployable AI is only one piece of the puzzle.”

“Getting humanoids into operations for heavy industry will require the systematic commercial and operational work that makes enterprises humanoid-ready and defining the business case, solving the integration challenges, and building the playbook for safe, scalable adoption,” he adds. “That’s what I’m here to build.”

Rice to lead Space Force tech institute under $8.1M agreement

space deal

Rice University has signed an $8.1 million cooperative agreement to lead the U.S. Space Force University Consortium/Space Strategic Technology Institute 4 (SSTI).

The new entity will be known as the Center for Advanced Space Sensing Technologies (CASST) at Rice and will focus on developing innovative remote sensing technologies.

“This investment positions Rice at the forefront of the technologies that will define how we see, understand and operate in space,” Amy Dittmar, Howard R. Hughes Provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, said in a news release. “By bringing together advanced remote sensing, AI-driven analysis and cross-institutional expertise, CASST will help transform raw space data into real-time insight and expand the frontiers of scientific discovery.

The news comes shortly after the Texas Space Commission approved a nearly $14.2 million grant for the newly created Center for Space Technologies at Rice.

David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute, will lead CASST. Alexander is also an inaugural member of the Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium and he serves on the boards of the Houston Spaceport Development Corporation, SpaceCom and the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture. The team also includes Rice professors and staff Kevin Kelly, Tomasz Tkaczyk, Kenny Evans, Kaden Hazzard, Mark Jernigan and Vinod Veedu, and collaborators from Houston-based Aegis Aerospace, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Santa Barbara and Georgia Institute of Technology.

In addition to bringing new space sensor innovation, the team will also work to miniaturize sensors while developing and implementing low-resource fabrication techniques, according to Rice. The researchers will also utilize AI and machine learning to analyze sensor data.

The U.S. Space Force uses space sensors to provide real-time information about space environments and assess potential threats. CASST is the fourth Space Strategic Technology Institute established by the USSF.

“Rice has helped shape the modern era of space research, and CASST marks a bold step into what comes next,” David Sholl, executive vice president for research at Rice, said in a news release. “As space becomes more contested and more essential to daily life, the ability to rapidly sense, interpret and act on what’s happening beyond Earth is critical. This center brings together the materials, engineering and data science innovations needed to deliver that capability."

The USSF University Consortium works with academic teams to develop breakthrough technologies and speed their transition into real-world applications for the U.S. Space Force.

The recent Rice award is part of $16 million over about three years. The USSF also signed a cooperative agreement with the University of Arizona in February.

The consortium has also helped facilitate several technological and commercial transitions over the last two years, including a $36 million commercial contract awarded to Axiom by Texas A&M University's in-space operations team and a follow-on $6 million contract to Axiom to build on technology developed by the University of Texas.

Leading Houston energy ecosystem rebrands for next phase

new look

Houston-based Energytech Nexus has rebranded.

The cleantech founders community will now be known as Energytech Cypher. Organizers say the new name was inspired by the Arabic roots of the word cypher, ṣifr, which is also the root of the word zero.

"A cypher is a key that unlocks what's hidden," Nada Ahmed, co-founder and chief revenue officer of Energytech Cypher, said in a news release. "And zero? Zero is where every transformation begins, the leap from 0 to 1, from idea to reality, from potential to power. We decode the energy transition by connecting the right founders, the right capital, and the right corporate partners at the right time, because the most important journey in energy is the one that takes you from nothing to something."

Energytech Nexus has rebranded to Energytech Cypher.

Co-founder and CEO Jason Ethier says that the name change better reflects the organization's mission.

"The energy transition doesn't have a technology problem. It has a connection problem," Ehtier added in the release. "The right founders exist. The right investors exist. The right partners exist. What's been missing is the infrastructure to bring them together—to decode the complexity, remove the friction, and make sure the best technologies find the markets that need them. That's what this community has always done. Energytech Cypher is the name that finally says it."

Energytech Cypher, previously known as Energytech Nexus, was first launched in 2023 and has grown from a podcast to a 130-member ecosystem. It has supported startups including Capwell Services, Resollant, Syzygy Plasmonics, Hertha Metals, Solidec and many others.

It is known for its flagship programs like the Pilotathon, which connects founders with industry partners for pilot opportunities. The event debuted in 2024.

Energytech Cypher also launched its COPILOT Accelerator last year. The accelerator partners with Browning the Green Space, a nonprofit that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the clean energy and climatech sectors. The inaugural cohort included two Houston-based startups and 12 others from around the U.S.

It also hosts programs like Liftoff, Energy Tech Market, lunch and learns, CEO roundtables, investor workshops and international partnership initiatives.

Last year, Energytech Cypher also announced a new strategic ecosystem partnership with Greentown Labs, aimed at accelerating growth for clean energy startups. It also named its global founding partners, including Houston-based operations such as Chevron Technology Ventures, Collide, Oxy Technology Ventures, and others from around the world.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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