Why We Invested in Origin: Bringing Physical AI to Construction

We are living through one of the largest infrastructure buildouts in modern history.

The world needs more housing, data centers, advanced manufacturing, and energy infrastructure. Trillions of dollars are being committed to building the foundations of the next generation of technological progress.

Yet every one of these ambitions eventually arrives at the same place: a construction site.

Despite extraordinary advances in technology, much of the work required to build our world still depends on skilled crews performing physically demanding tasks in complex, unpredictable environments.

At Zacua Ventures, we believe the next major frontier for artificial intelligence is the physical world, and construction represents one of its greatest opportunities.

That conviction is why we're excited to co-lead Origin'slatest financing alongside Accel, as the company emerges from stealth with $20 million in total funding.

Construction is one of the world's largest industries, yet remains among the least automated. Productivity has barely improved over the past two decades, while a growing shortage of skilled workers is making it harder to meet rising infrastructure demand.

The challenge lies in the nature of construction itself. Factories operate in controlled environments, while construction sites are constantly changing. Every project brings different layouts, surfaces, obstacles, and working conditions. Building robots that can reliably navigate this complexity has historically been extraordinarily difficult.

But the robotics landscape is changing rapidly.

Advances in AI, computer vision, robotic manipulation, and hardware are allowing robots to take on increasingly complex physical work. We're already seeing robots move beyond demonstrations into everyday use for tasks like layout, rebar tying, earthmoving, and site inspection.

Adoption is picking up too. The share of surveyed contractors who had deployed robotics on at least one jobsite grew from 29% in 2025 to 74% in 2026.

As we explored in our Construction Robotics Report 2026, we're beginning to see real commercial deployments across the industry, with robotics still representing a tiny fraction(0.03%) of global construction spending.

We believe construction robotics is approaching an inflection point, and we're still in the earliest chapters of what this industry can become.

At Zacua, we're fortunate to be backed by some of the world's largest construction and built-environment companies. These relationships give us firsthand insight into what contractors need and why new technologies succeed or struggle on jobsites.

One thing we've consistently learned is that the appetite for automation is real, but the bar for adoption is high. Productivity, reliability, quality, and economics ultimately determine what gets adopted.

That's what made Origin stand out to us.

The team is building a general-purpose robotic platform for construction, starting with interior finishing. Its first robot, OG-1, autonomously applies compound, sands, and primes walls, handling everything from large surfaces to corners, edges, and work at height.

It's a compelling starting point, with a much larger opportunity ahead.

When we think about constructing a building, much of our attention goes to the structure itself. Yet an enormous amount of work and cost lies in everything that happens inside it.

In new single-family homes, interior finishes and mechanical, electrical, and plumbing rough-ins together account for over 40% of construction costs. And that's only part of the picture.

Think about everything required to complete a building: framing, drywall, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, insulation, and finishing. Hundreds of tasks across multiple specialized trades.

Origin's ambition is to build a common robotic platform capable of working across them.

Its proprietary Construction Action Model allows OG-1 to understand its environment, plan and execute tasks, and assess the quality of its work. Trained using simulation and real jobsite data, the system is designed to improve with experience.

Paired with modular hardware and interchangeable tools, the same robotic platform can expand into new trades over time. Each deployment creates more opportunities to improve performance and develop capabilities that carry across applications.

This is what excites us about Origin's approach.

The potential to build a common intelligence and hardware platform that can automate an increasingly large share of interior construction.

Ultimately, our strongest conviction in Origin comes from its founders.

Yogesh Ghaturle, Tushar Makkar, and Ashish Daga bring together an exceptional combination of entrepreneurial experience, AI expertise, and robotics engineering.

Yogesh previously built Perpule, acquired by Amazon in 2021. Tushar brings deep AI experience from Eightfold AI and Google, while Ashish has spent over a decade developing robotics and precision hardware.

Within just ten months of founding, they had deployed working robots on active construction sites in New York. Having evaluated numerous construction robotics companies, we know how difficult that transition can be.

Their ambition, technical depth, and remarkable ability to execute give us the conviction that this is the team to bring that vision to life.

The coming decade will fundamentally change how physical infrastructure gets built.

Intelligent machines will increasingly work alongside skilled tradespeople, taking on repetitive and physically demanding work while helping contractors build faster and at greater scale.

We're incredibly excited to partner with Yogesh, Tushar, Ashish, and the entire Origin team as they bring this vision to construction sites around the world.

Every great technological advancement depends on the physical world we build around it.

We believe it's time for the way we build that world to advance just as dramatically.

To discuss more, please reach out to Varad Mohod & Vivin Hegde