Robust by Type will present its ultralight engineered wooden at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

Even earlier than a constructing accepts its first occupant, it has racked up a steep carbon debt. Worldwide, the supplies and development required to erect buildings contributes 11% of worldwide carbon emissions, in accordance to the World Inexperienced Constructing Council.

Some locations have begun experimenting with multistory timber buildings, and whereas they’ve lately reached new heights, timber buildings gained’t be changing skyscrapers anytime quickly. However one Chilean startup thinks that there’s nonetheless room for wooden to discover a place.

“We’re extra into hybrid buildings,” Andrés Mitnik, co-founder and CEO of Robust by Type, advised TechCrunch. His firm has developed a brand new engineered wooden product that may substitute concrete and metal in structural flooring, permitting architects to design lighter, much less carbon intensive buildings. The corporate is a Startup Battlefield High 20 finalist and is presenting at TechCrunch Disrupt, which runs this week in San Francisco. 

The key is in how these flooring plates are made. “We expect we are able to form wooden in a manner that nobody else has carried out it earlier than,” he stated.

Robust by Type has designed a structural flooring piece that may span longer distances than present engineered wooden, making it a substitute for metal or concrete. On the identical time, the product is lighter than all three.

On the surface, builders will see one thing acquainted. “When a contractor will get it, they see a CLT [cross-laminated timber] slab,” Mitnik stated. “All of the connections, the development system, all of the processes on web site are precisely as in case you have been utilizing CLT, so no have to study new issues.”

However inside, as an alternative of extra stable wooden, such as you’d discover in a CLT, the construction is crammed with cavities. Wooden shavings have been pressed right into a wavy board that’s optimized to bear heavy masses.

The wavy panel appears like oriented strand board, or OSB, which is frequent all through job websites. However Robust by Type has developed software program and a producing approach to tweak the dimensions and alignment of the wooden flakes which might be held collectively by a glue-like binder. “It’s form of a next-generation OSB, if you wish to give it some thought like that,” Mitnik stated.

By utilizing wooden’s pure kind and strengths, Robust by Type has constructed wooden structural flooring that at the moment span 10 meters (about 33 toes). Most CLT flooring can solely span half that distance.

All that expertise isn’t free, however Mitnik stated that the upper prices of its engineered wooden product could be offset by its lighter weight. 

“The thought is to create one thing that’s so gentle it means that you can have an general optimization of the construction,” he stated. Lighter flooring imply much less metal and concrete within the body, which lowers the general value of the constructing. “With these extra financial savings, we’re capable of obtain value parity with concrete.”

Robust by Type is testing its 10 meter panel, guaranteeing it meets fireplace and cargo scores that structural engineers require.

Subsequent, it can increase a Sequence A spherical focused at $10 million to construct a pilot plant to supply the primary items supposed for business deployment.

Within the meantime, Robust by Type has additionally developed a panel three millimeters thick that’s supposed for end as an alternative of structural responsibility. The startup is working with prepare producers to make use of its subtly undulating panel on the inside of trains, the place they’ll soften the aesthetic of the partitions and ceilings of prepare automobiles whereas lowering their mass.

“That was has allowed us to fund all of the R&D [research and development] required to do the flooring, which is what we actually wish to scale, as a result of that’s the place the influence is,” Mitnik stated.

If you wish to study extra about Robust by Type from the corporate itself — whereas additionally testing dozens of others, listening to their pitches, and listening to visitor audio system on 4 totally different levels — be part of us at Disrupt, this week in San Francisco. Study extra right here.