Stansted
Stansted automates timber framing for residential construction.
- Category
- Deep Tech
- Fund
- NZVC II
- Website
- www.stansted.co.nz
What Stansted does
Stansted's robots assemble wall frames off-site from laminated veneer lumber, an engineered timber that is stronger, straighter and drier throughout than sawn timber, to sub-millimetre accuracy, and deliver them to site exactly as specified at sawn timber prices. The company says crews lose an average of 40 hours on every home fixing warped timber and inaccurate frames. The first phase is automated LVL wall framing for builders in Canterbury, followed by roof trusses and floor cassettes, with commercial launch planned for 2027. Hamish Maxwell founded Stansted in Christchurch.
The secret behind Stansted
LVL makes better frames than sawn timber, but it was priced out of ordinary houses. Robotic assembly takes enough labor and waste out of a frame that the better material can be sold at the price of the worse one.
Why NZVC invested in Stansted
We backed Stansted because housing is the largest expense in most people's lives, and construction productivity has gone backwards for decades while its skilled workforce ages. Stansted starts with a product builders already buy, the wall frame, and makes it better at the same price, which is a practical way to bring robotics into the industry.