Monumental Makes Construction Bots Play Nice Together | E2217

This Week in Startups

Jason Calacanis

Technology

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2025

⏱️ 86 minutes

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Summary

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

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Today’s show:

Did you know there’s actually a shortage of US bricklayers? It’s TRUE! So feel free to marvel at Monumental’s brick-laying robots. They’re not putting anyone out of work, but filling a much-needed gap.

Join Alex and Monumental founder/CEO Salar al Khafaji for a deep-dive on how the startup is making construction robots play nice together by maintaining separate “zones” of operation, why Salar thinks startups need to focus on truly complex, real-world problems to truly blossom, and the secrets of fundraising in Europe.

PLUS Alex chats with Seasats CEO Mike Flanigan about designing the next generation of autonomous marine crafts. (That is to say, ocean drones.) From their home base in San Diego, the company is trying to get completely independent of all Chinese parts. Find out how it’s going, how they’re overcoming the “wildly negative” ROI on maritime tech, and why we have so few defenses against tiny, agile drones.

All that AND Jason takes some of YOUR Founder Questions.

Timestamps:

(03:23) How Monumental determined what kinds of robots construction sites need the most

(06:49) How maintaining “zones” ensure that the robots all play nice with one another

(07:52) There’s a shortage of bricklayers, so Monumental’s NOT taking anyone’s job

(9:16) LinkedIn Ads: Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. Launch your first campaign and get $250 FREE when you spend at least $250. Go to http://linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups to claim your credit.

(13:21) Why startups need to tackle large-scale, complex, real-world problems to really grow

(15:44) Why Monumental is building in The Netherlands, and running pilots in the UK

(19:07) Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist

(20:44) Why construction is unique among applications for automation and robots

(26:01) Salar argues that fundraising in Europe is not as hard as you may have heard

(27:55) We don’t just need housing, we need BEAUTIFUL housing

(31:11) Pilot - Visit https://www.pilot.com/twist and get $1,200 off your first year.

(33:25) How the Scout autonomous boat challenge inspired Seasats

(35:28) Trying to make drones into an “iPhone Style” project

(37:39) Why Seasats is focused on endurance and staying power more than launches

(39:15) The complexities of working with fuel cells

(42:27) The importance of beautiful design even when working on government technology

(45:51) Why they’re building Seasats in beautiful San Diego, CA

(47:29) The challenge of getting entirely free from Chinese components

(53:52) “The Power of Small Things Has Changed”

(55:18) The “wildly negative” ROI on most humanoid robotics companies also applies to maritime tech

(59:09) Why there are so few defense nets against people with tiny but agile drones

(01:02:32) FOUNDER Q’s: Is a founder working 24/7 a red flag?

(01:10:11) How bad is it to use VC money to pay off credit cards?

(01:12:49) A look at Cursor’s unique recruitment strategy.

(01:19:57) Should young VCs go to startup conferences?

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Follow Lon:

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm/

Thank you to our partners:

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(31:11) Pilot - Visit https://www.pilot.com/twist and get $1,200 off your first year.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We built three types of robots that work together.
0:02.4	They actually share one platform.
0:03.9	The main one obviously is doing the bricklaying.
0:07.1	But we also immediately decided to build one that supplies the bricks and then one that supplies
0:11.9	the mortar.
0:12.5	A big part of automated construction is actually about automating like the supply chain
0:16.2	on construction side.
0:17.1	Is it kind of like end to end automated or do humans still need to do any loading or unloading
0:22.5	in the workflow process? Right now, we decided to have like our core focus is as we call it, like the
0:27.9	wall autonomy, like as you're building a facade, basically. And so the loading and loading currently
0:31.7	still done by an operator. So basically, even though there's still a little bit of humans required to make
0:36.5	this work, the process is basically entirely machine driven. And the human inputs are going down. And even currently today, they're minimal. So you guys are almost there, sounds like? Do they already play nice with one another? Or do you have to kind of keep them in separate zones so they don't, you know, butt arms? They can't play together. Very nicely, yes. This week in startups is brought to you by Pilot.
0:57.3	Focus on your product.
0:58.7	Let Pilot handle your bookkeeping.
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1:07.0	Head to pilot.com slash twist and get $1,200 off your first year.
1:12.0	Vanta.
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1:26.2	And LinkedIn ads. Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads
	...

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