Toronto-based construction tech startup Promise Robotics is ready to grow south of the border after landing its first United States (US) customer: DR Horton, the nation’s largest homebuilder in terms of volume.
Through the multi-year commercial agreement, DR Horton will leverage Promise’s tech and “factory-as-a-service” capabilities to support the production of more than 1,250 largely single-story, single-family homes for buyers in the Phoenix, Arizona area.
Promise CEO Ramtin Attar said a deal like this “requires quite a bit of trust.”
Promise co-founder and CEO Ramtin Attar told BetaKit in an interview that a deal like this “requires quite a bit of trust.” He said the deal emphasizes the power of the startup’s platform, which aims to help developers build homes faster and more cheaply than traditional construction methods.
“That a company at that scale is able to look at what we have done and say, ‘We’re ready to work with you,’ that, to me, is very significant,” Attar added.
Promise announced the deal today, also revealing it intends to open a 16,000-square-foot factory in Phoenix. There, its AI-powered robots will assemble the components necessary to construct these houses in what marks the start of its broader US expansion. “This is our go-to-market facility in [the] US,” Attar said.
The hub, which will be Promise’s first outside of Canada and the company’s third of its kind after Calgary and Edmonton, is expected to begin manufacturing in early 2027.
“I was actually talking to an investor the other day who said, ‘I really love your odds. If you can build in the frost in Calgary, Phoenix is going to be pretty darn simple,’ and that’s exactly the case,” Attar said.
While the US housing market is very different from Canada’s, Attar said it faces similar challenges, from labour shortages to rising costs, and pressure to build more homes faster.
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Promise uses AI to interpret existing home designs, generate production plans and robotic instructions, orchestrate manufacturing, and connect that production with site installation as part of one integrated platform. The company equips off-the-shelf robots with its own tooling and software to produce everything from repeatable modular housing to custom builds.
“We are continuously focused on improving cycle times, increasing production capacity, and bringing greater consistency and predictability to our operations,” DR Horton senior vice president of strategic innovation Brad Conlon said in a statement. “Promise Robotics’ integrated platform gives us a new capability to support those goals.”
Attar claimed Promise, which is now contracted to build just over 2,500 homes for several different homebuilders, has completed over 200 builds to date for a group that includes Brookfield, Hopewell, and Mattamy.
“These are real market homes that people are living in,” the Autodesk alumnus said.
Promise’s factories are currently capable of producing many of the core components that make a house, from the interior and exterior walls to the flooring, stairs, and roof.
The 80-person startup is working to add heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, and plumbing, followed by drywall, insulation, and more over time as it looks to grow to 100 employees by the end of 2026.
Feature image courtesy Promise Robotics.
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