Construction robotics startup Origin came out of stealth Oct. 15 with $20 million in total funding and a drywall-finishing robot it says is already working on New York job sites. Accel and Zacua Ventures co-led the round. The San Francisco company claims its OG-1 robot finishes walls about three times faster than a human crew at human-level quality. Nobody outside the company has verified that.
Founded in early 2025 by CEO Yogesh Ghaturle, whose last startup Perpule was bought by Amazon in 2021, plus Ashish Daga and Tushar Makkar, Origin says it put its first robots on New York sites within 10 months, according to Pulse 2.0’s report on the raise. Other backers include Unilazer Ventures, Schema Ventures, Z21 and angel investors from Anduril, Skild AI, 1X and Tesla.
What the OG-1 drywall robot does
OG-1 rides a three-wheeled base with 360-degree sensing and reaches up to 14 feet. Today it applies compound, sands and primes, using real-time force control for the contact work, and it handles corners, pillars and soffits. Origin says it works next to crews without a cordoned-off zone. Interchangeable tools are supposed to let it pick up other trades later: taping, drywall hanging, drilling and conduit.
The software is a construction-specific foundation model Origin calls the Construction Action Model, trained on simulation plus data from live sites. The company says the robots are running in commercial interiors, multifamily, data centers, hotels and warehouses, and that it works with two of the largest U.S. drywall-finishing contractors. It didn’t name either one.
Construction robotics claims vs. jobsite reality
The investors are saying the quiet part themselves. “Too many construction robots perform well in a lab and fail within a week on a live job site,” Zacua founding partner Vivin Hegde said in the launch materials. That’s the bar Origin now has to clear in public.
A few things to keep in mind. Crews still handle mapping, material and support, so a 3x finishing rate doesn’t translate into a 3x room. Runtime Wire noted the speed figure is company-reported, and the multi-trade pitch is unproven. Origin’s own target is 150 robots deployed by the end of 2027, which is a fleet, not a market. It plans pilots in Germany, Sweden, France and Saudi Arabia.
It also isn’t alone in drywall. JLG Industries, the Oshkosh access-equipment unit, bought San Francisco’s Canvas and its 1200CX finishing platform in January, ENR reported. Canvas had spent years trying to sell finishing as a service before a manufacturer took it in.
What drywall contractors should ask
Finishing is a sensible first target. It’s repetitive, it’s on the critical path for interiors and good finishers are hard to hire. The questions for a subcontractor are the ordinary ones: who owns the robot on site, who fixes it at 6 a.m., what level of finish it holds on a Level 5 spec, and whether the price per square foot beats a crew once setup and moves between floors are counted.
Single-task jobsite robots are piling up. DEWALT’s overhead drilling unit has put 385,000 holes in data center slabs without a named customer either. Origin’s 150-robot goal will show whether finishing contractors buy in or keep piloting.