Submission Statement

The US capital markets regularly throw billions, if not tens of billions, at technology companies whose business models stretch credulity. Uber has raised $25 billion, and never once turned a profit.

Which raises the question, why aren't they interested in 3D printing of houses? There is a massive shortage of houses around the world and the construction staff to build them. Country after country on every continent lacks housing, poor and rich countries alike. It seems reasonable to assume global demand for 3D printed houses could be counted in the tens of millions, perhaps even more.

Apis Cor has a demonstrable record of achievement with its technology. Their most famous construction in Dubai looks of a standard many people would be perfectly happy with as a dwelling.

Yet they and the rest of this sector are shunned by capital markets - what gives?

It's new technology that most common folks have not even heard of. This is not uncommon.

The following submission statement was provided by /u/lughnasadh:

Submission Statement

The US capital markets regularly throw billions, if not tens of billions, at technology companies whose business models stretch credulity. Uber has raised $25 billion, and never once turned a profit.

Which raises the question, why aren't they interested in 3D printing of houses? There is a massive shortage of houses around the world and the construction staff to build them. Country after country on every continent lacks housing, poor and rich countries alike. It seems reasonable to assume global demand for 3D printed houses could be counted in the tens of millions, perhaps even more.

Apis Cor has a demonstrable record of achievement with its technology. Their most famous construction in Dubai looks of a standard many people would be perfectly happy with as a dwelling.

Yet they and the rest of this sector are shunned by capital markets - what gives?

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yl8eph/apis_cor_may_be_americas_most_advanced_3d/iux1pz7/

I reckon disaster hardiness is the big issue here.

Since Katrina, builders and realtors have (in theory) been under higher scrutiny for what they build and where they build it, especially as passing the buck to the consumer via "your fault for not having ____ insurance" is wearing thin.

Until there's a better idea of how these hold up, it's unproven tech.

The thing I like most is that in a couple days, we are able to throw up a "waterproof shell", and that is the hardest part.

Once the foundation, walls, roof, doors and windows are in...the considerable interior work can proceed regardless of the weather.

It also provides a "reasonably" safe place for the materials and tools to be stored.

Oh totally. I love the technology. The 3D printing field is incredibly versatile.

This technology is very expansive, it costs 2x to use 3D printing over normal contraction.

Not only that, you still need to do inside and outside, roof, and everything else, all this dose is just builds walls out of concrete.

It’s a neat idea but it’s such a small part of actual construction. It also only fits into a very niche part of the housing market, upper end 1-3 story houses in emerging neighborhoods. It also doesn’t help that most places people don’t want concrete walls

I hope 3D printers will be more affordable so everyone can buy it like they did with copier and fax machine

>>This technology is very expansive

Actually the opposite is the case, as you are replacing human workers with robots. Apis Cor claim a 30% reduction in prices compared to traditional methods.

It's reasonable to assume if the industry matured and was in widespread use, and its robots continued technologically advancing, and were able to do more and more of the work, costs would go down even more.

I like www.3dwasp.com. They use clay to print natural homes.

Housing seems like a bad fit for 3D printing. The main value proposition of 3D printing is that it is infinitely customizable, so a single printer can mass produce an indefinite number of unique components.

But housing doesn’t really need to be unique. In fact, unique designs are disfavored because each new design needs to be tested and verified by an architect. Instead, housing is built up out of standardized parts, to standardized designs.

But you don’t need, and probably don’t want, a 3D printer to print out the same components over and over. Instead, it’s cheaper and easier to just stamp them out with a dedicated machine (e.g. cement bricks) and quickly assemble them onsite.

Nothing in that article supports the OP's claim that they're being "shunned" and have to turn to retail investors as a last resort. They probably just didn't want to give up however much equity traditional investors were asking for and/or they want to remain small and boutique until the technology has had a chance to mature.

You really can’t compare software and hardware businesses when it comes to funding…

1. Because investment in hardware companies has been really low over the last 20 years. Most capital is flowing to software which has much higher margins and less risk.

2. Because the business doesn't math out. Their calculations on labor costs are overly optimistic. And they assume a "profit" of $13k for four houses. That assumes a builder is doing a steady 4 houses a month (only large builders do this with consistency)

3. The exterior walls are some of the faster and easiest parts of a home to build, the "win" here is limited.

4. If your goal is to make affordable modern homes, BOXBL and other pre-fab builders offer a more compelling solution.

5. The construction industry moves slowly. ICF and SIPS have been fully available and tested for DECADES and are only now starting to become more common.

I love the technology, but it is a niche tool for the foreseeable future.

That's the problem with claims.

If they could build a desirable house in the US for 33% cheaper, then they would.

According to their website its 33% cheaper than a comparable cost of a concrete block home. And that 33% is based on 'internal calculations' not even actual costs for actual projects. Concrete block homes are more expensive than regular stick built homes, and they are less popular.

So it still costs at least the same when compared to regular construction. And thats not even looking at the wider picture in regards to zoning laws and building codes. Their website talks about addressing the housing needs of the US population.
The reason there's a big housing shortage in the US is because it's designed that way. There was never an issue with figuring out how to build the homes.

All that said, there is a lot of promise in the idea of a 3d printed house, but the technology isn't cheaper, and not able to compete with the current market.

My sister had a house built in stages. They bought a desirable lot as soon as a development opened up.

They got plans made, and instead of financing the entire build, they got a home equity loan to build the foundation and shell (walls, roof, doors, windows, etc).

At that point, they had an asset that was worth something, and they could then take out a completion loan against the structure, and its equity.

This staged process allowed them to have he second house built, and they could then take their time moving in, and selling the first house.

Sure, the house marked is the key to hold every worker as slaves.

I would argue it’s less to do with being safe (look at the Florida condo collapses and tell me it’s not systemic) and more to do with choking the supply of new housing. Private equity in the US (Blackrock mainly) is the largest single owner of homes in the nation. It behooves them, and other institutional owners, to keep supply low since demand is inelastic. Putting out a message to VC firms that they’ll get buried if they invest in anything to help solve the housing crisis seems like it would be the most logical move for these giant financial institutions, and what individual VC is going to risk their entire portfolio to try and fuck over Blackrock? Not a single one could, even if they had the balls.

They are currently cheaper than a copier, the ink is just expensive

Beggars can't be choosers?

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Agreed. Follow the money and you will always find the answer

Eh. The houses aren't really important, it's the land they're built on. There's already enough housing, It's just that people don't own them (or the land they are built on).

Yes, you could build more houses and leave some empty, but they will be in slightly less productive locations. There's a reason people pay so much to live in NYC or San Francisco.

This approach is miles more expensive than a cookie cutter home by main builders. The issue isn't that we can't build affordable homes its zoning issues and land costs. Why earn 10k profit a low income home when you can earn 50k profit for a high end home on the same land. In addition zoning laws mandate things like parking, minimum sizes, minimum set backs, to prevent low income people from lowering home values in richer neighborhoods.

The bullshit system and affordability crisis isn't a tech problem, its the system working as designed... by rich people to stay rich.

Have you looked at real estate across the country though? It’s not just metropolitan areas that saw insane price spikes due to supply being gobbled up and new construction not being nearly able to keep up pace with demand. You’re right in that it’s definitely down to ownership, but cornering the market requires owning (or effectively controlling the price of) all assets and that includes cutting off production, unless it’s at a controlled pace and part of a vertical monopoly anyway. But disruption would generally be bad for private equity right now, which, I believe, is why we’re seeing no investment here.

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I would think if they collaborated with a home builder it could help them? A master planned community type situation.

Have you read the link? Land rent is based on the availability of marginally productive alternatives. Think of an island with one fertile patch and a bunch of desert. The rent you can charge a worker by owning the fertile patch is the difference between output of the fertile patch vs the desert.

On the other hand, the desert is still more productive than the ocean. If we find ways to make the desert more productive... rent on the desert will also go up.

Land speculation applies to all land and the rent you could expect to collect, regardless of how urban or rural it is. The solution is to effectively eliminate private ownership of land through a Land Value Tax.

I’m down for eliminating private land ownership. It behooves us all to treat it as the commons and create proper, sustainable management of our natural resources.

I don't think their business makes sense on Earth. Maybe on the Moon or Mars...

To be clear, an LVT only eliminates the financial portion of private ownership. The holder of the deed still gets exclusive decision-making authority over how the land gets used as long as they are paying the tax. If you want to conserve natural resources you'd have to add additional market corrections, e.g. a payment to NOT cut down a tree.

They don't have to "put the word out", VC firms are in the business of getting between a founder and an acquisition.

I build home professionally and I have a 3d printer. In the amount of time site prep to get these things operating, we could have already framed and sheathed a house. Even with basic 3d printing, we need to level the bed and if it's out of level the print fails.

If I can just get some lumber and some guys, who don't care if the site is not level, and frame a house up in a few days. Why would I bother with getting a super expensive concrete jet and specialized know how.

Yeah because we need to buy shit wood from overseas that we originally sold overseas or shit MDF and the entire point of the house building industry is to make shitty things that are expensive. This would be really viable if anyone gave a shit about running a business that actually benefitted the consumer

Land, and housing, ownership is the single greatest means by which the middle class accumulates generational wealth.

By removing ownership, it is the middle class that gets held down. Not the wealthy.

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Like most tech, the early stages are proving grounds on whether it's possible to do, now the challenge is feasibility in cost. The labor market for building homes is pretty one sided as well. Would it be fair to say the contractors who are actually on site doing the framing, putting sheathing, and hoisting rafters get less than $10 an hour in some cases? Don't get me wrong, I'm not personally attacking you or anyone who employs manual labor at such a low rate, but those costs place a strain on the working class. Technology was meant to make life more comfortable and accessible to the masses. I think that's the bigger picture here.

I mean black rock and 2 other companies put something like 2 Trillion into buying homes in 2020. Zillow started getting out but they were only a couple hundred billion of that. Blackrock was over a trillion.

This company could make so much more money if they just stopped doing houses and started designing and printing smaller stuff like dog houses/garden deco or something lol

We're running out of sand for concrete so they are going to have to come up with alternative materials to print with. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a39880899/earth-is-running-out-of-sand/

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/sand-crisis-looms-world-population-surges-un-warns-2022-04-26/

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I never understood the appeal of 3d printing for construction, despite the occasional news article on how this will change everything.

Wasn't 3d printing intended for highly specialized intricated objects that have to be custom made in small quantities and without lengthy prototyping?

Houses have been made of bricks for centuries. Those are totally uniform and easy to mass produce and keep their design for decades. Exactly not what 3d printing should try to compete with.

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Anyone who would live in a concrete structure without rebar needs his or hero’s head examined.

Furthermore, any construction company or municipality who builds a bunch of these surely knows the nightmare the structures will be in 30 years. They will all get torn down and someone will be held liable to for the check.

Yeah I'm always highly skeptical when someone makes a claim like that. If there's actually good money in it, people will jump on the opportunity; you won't get shunned.

If they can't get VC funding it's for only one of two reasons. They don't like the terms VCs have offered or their business model doesn't scale to the point where VCs are interested.

VCs are extremely competitive with one another and even a big juggernaut like Blackrock can't bully smaller competitors around.

If you mean a gigantic concrete one, then good luck.

If you mean a reasonably sized one for printing plastic, you can often find the Ender 3 Pro at Microcenter for $100 with their "new customer" coupon. It's very much an entry level machine, but well worth $100 if you think you're interested in the hobby.

Filaments vary in price, but $20/kg is a reasonable estimate. A 1kg spool goes a fairly long way.

As a disclaimer, 3d printing (especially with an entry level machine) requires more knowledge and tinkering than a standard printer. It's not quite an appliance where you click a button and that's it. 3d printing can be frustrating at times.

Why is that industry so slow for change?

Concrete doesn’t seem to be an ideal material for the typical single family home in most places… Not surprising there are no investors - I bet anyone that knows a decent amount about construction wouldn’t want to gamble on them.

Well get your ass to Colorado and let’s build Some shit.

Houses need to last a very long time. The plumbing system could last 75+ years, the house could last 100+ years if you keep up with maintence. This means switching to a new technology that turns out to not work as advertised can be a disaster.

There used to be a copper water pipe replacement called polybutylene. It was cheaper and easier to install than copper, but it turned out to have a short lifespan with leaks happening early in it's life. You might not be able to get homeowners insurance if you have these pipes requiring them to be replaced. They started being installed in the 70's but it wasn't until the 90's the problem was discovered. That's 20+ years of what was thought to be a proven technology.

So construction companies, the reputable ones at least, don't want to leap into something new only to find out many years later there's some horrible problem that could not be forseen.

Then there's the "we've always done it that way" people. Even when something is proven they refuse to use it because they have always done something a different way. These are also the people that shake hands with danger because they think it's manly to breath in rock dust and get lung cancer. When you are near a construction site and hear a guitar riff that's somebody that doesn't know what they're doing. https://youtu.be/Mmrs9GYkbqg

My cat claims she's never eaten food before but she's still fat. An independent third party needs to calculate total costs, not the company selling it that swear it's cheaper and you just have to believe them.

When all you have is a hammer then everything's a nail. Somebody that knows a lot about 3D printing decided that it will work for everything. I'd like to know how it compares to a factory built house, or a factory built 3D printed house

This is the thing -modular/prefab construction will almost always be more cost effective than this. Maybe when humanity gets to the point of building moon bases with lunar ice and substrate a system like this will be practical, but on earth a prefab house frame on a flat truck is going to be cheaper.

Because this will kill millions of union paying jobs....think about the economy.

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This is also the problem with finding someone to do our small bathroom remodel. Why bid on a $5-7k job when people are lining up for $40-100k bathrooms?

Construction is notoriously traditional. Any new tech is a massive risk especially when it comes to the superstructure which often has up to 50 years guarantee period. So if anything goes wrong, whoever used that printer will go bankrupt.

But there is far more wrong with 3d printers how it's often commercially used. To begin it really contributes nothing, you get an inner wall that's not smooth so you need to spend a lot more on making it acceptable. And in the end all you got is an inner wall, you got no insulation, you got no plumbing you got no exterior wall, you got just a shell. And there are already alternatives for it. These days speed is everything and factory assembled housing becomes more common for repeated housing projects. They erect a whole street in a week. Working off site is the future not a wobbly 3d printed wall.

Now that being said, it doesn't mean 3d printing has no place in construction but in very specific projects. I've seen for example some complex spans as well bridge elements being printed.

But anyone promoting 3d printing as mentioned in the article fails to understand construction (which is baffling because even professors from TU Delft are big on this).

Union labor

So essentially because the life expectancy of the finished product needs be so robust obviously everything from the ground up does as well. So like you said, the "tried and true" holds positive sentiment.

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Are there middle men and support industries? Oh, no? it's efficient? yeah, that's the problem.

Why does a VC company care what Blackrock thinks of them? They have billionaire investors that can do whatever they want. Their business model doesn't make them susceptible to getting bullied or blackmailed, they are the rich assholes bullying out competitors in most cases.

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That's only because that's how our financial system has been built in the past. We're trying to buck all sorts of bad economic habits from the past, like unregulated capitalism for instance. If we make some changes such that more people have access to good housing, people don't privately hold land property, and people have secure means to pass on wealth, that would be ideal imo.

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Not to mention the time required for set-up. You need a completely cleared site with a perfectly level grade. You could probably finish framing a traditional wood home in the time it would take to just get the site ready for one of these.

And if something goes wrong you can just pop a couple studs out and fix it. And now you need trained engineers who can run, fix, and maintain the machine. What happens if it breaks down? The whole job site is shut down. And how many people in the world can fix this machine?

It’s not being shunned, it’s a overhyped garbage product no one in their right mind would buy. The technology is 100 years away from being close to conventional construction methods such as advanced framing, continuous insulation etc. A CNC concrete pump truck can’t install mechanical, electrical, window systems etc. it’s an expensive robot that pours reinforced concrete. Which is a tiny fraction of home building. Construction materials are mass produced in massive production systems to accommodate construction practices and you’re going to Death Star sized team of engineers to develop a robot that can compete with tradespeople while being building code compliant, structurally sound, and architecturally palatable. Unless you have an army of robots with human level skill and intelligence it’s a non starter. Total scam. Venture capital infused Silicon Valley startup vibes. There are flying cars on the market that make more sense than this.

You still have to pour the slab, and currently I am not a fan of the houses.

I mean, you basically explained the appeal yourself. Highly specialized intricate objects means that my house can be completely unique and different from yours. Some people don't want to live in cookie cutter neighborhoods.

Also, people thought it was appealing because they don't consider the reality of 3d printing a house in terms of logistics. They just think you plop down the machine and come back in the morning and there's your house.

It fundamentally changes home design. From the simple fact that homes don’t need to be rectangular to more important things like changes access for plumbing and electrical. And contrary to belief, the interior surfaces could be dry walled just like any home today. But I would argue better printing quality and materials would render drywall obsolete. Just print the final wall surface.

It’s a superior manufacturing concept, but needs refinement and really really needs a partnership with green concrete tech. It could lead to a new way for home owners to get government grants, just like with solar.

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Capitalism is the worst system in the world.

Except for all the economic systems.

I always say it like this: if whatever thing being sold by whatever shady person/company was so great, you'd be able to buy it at Wal-Mart, because that's how you get rich selling stuff.

Hard disagree, not much content in your statement

So, name a better existing economic system.

You sound like an investor.

The biggest issue I have with my house definitely isn't that it's rectangular. Curved walls wouldn't improve my housing experience.

See also: CPVC pipe.

This isn't exactly innovative. Construction loans have been a thing for a long time.

This is unquestionably 1000% not how capital markets work

It's a Churchill quote.

Nonono you don’t understand. Blackrock has “put the word out” so no VC will invest in this profitable company because it will be so wildly successful that it will actually damage Blackrock’s investments in residential housing.

/s

BlackRock deals in trillions.

The difference between a billion dollars and a trillion dollars, is about a trillion dollars.

They absolutely bully anyone, including imo the Fed.

Walmart has totally predatory relationships with almost everyone in the supply chain. There are lots of great things that aren’t sold at Walmart because Fuck walmart

There is no real green concrete tech. Meaning there is not a technology within 10x current concrete mfg and pouring cost

You're trying to start a hardly-relevant argument. Capitalist evangelism is silly. I said unregulated capitalism is bad. You have no decent argument against that because you know working children to death is bad.

By the way, our capitalist system is a regulated one.

I don't respect you trying to start an argument with snappy one-liners.

By the way, since you're gung-ho, go ahead and list and correctly define some non-capitalism economic systems. I constantly see many people (conservatives) talk about various economic systems without understanding what they are, so you can certainly understand my question.

Lol, after re-reading that.. yes, I was a little too enthusiastic. I just think this is a really good idea.

I agree that curved walls don’t “matter” in terms of quality of living experience, but it could open up a lot of new design possibilities on the interior that weren’t possible before. I think that’s really cool.

The other advantages I mentioned are more important IMO. Cheaper, faster, safer construction that might produce longer lasting structures. (Concrete if prepped/poured right, can last for a very long time without failure.)

The innovations happening with algae based concrete are promising. Very renewable… and if algae is involved in more food and energy supplies in the future, this is a great end of life use case for algae. If those other thing don’t happen though, it would be really difficult to get the volume you’d need to make it work for concrete at scale.

(This reminds me of how sawdust saw a new use case in transporting blocks of ice in the late 1800s before modern refrigeration emerged. Totally new end of life purpose for an otherwise thrown away product. Sawmills in the northeastern USA got a whole new revenue stream).

We’re probably still like 10+ years from it being at a point to scale to the size we need to eliminate regular concrete, but the idea and value are both there. They just need to show people.

Agreed. Conventional methods for construction are now streamlined, we haven’t changed course in 100 years. So it’s an uphill climb to invent new ways to rough in mechanical systems with this new type of construction. So investment will shy away until execution can beat current efficiencies. That has to be proven up before money starts to pour in.

I only meant to include it as a point of reference for younger readers who are not familiar with it.

Staged construction Ioan's are well-suited to the 3D printing of the shell of a new home.

Your list and definitions can be found here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_system

But you understood what I meant.

Cheaper? No evidence of that. Faster? No evidence of that. Safer? No evidence of that.

Stick-framed houses are very fast to build, environmentally friendly (the stuff LITERALLY GROWS ON TREES), and aren't particularly expensive. Furthermore, they require no exotic expertise or machinery, and can be built anywhere the building materials can be shipped.

Construction loans are indeed well-suited to construction projects, yes. That is correct. Nothing interesting here in relation to 3D printed structures.

The only thing superior about it is the decreased labor and until it finds a way to get a lot cheaper or framers get a lot more expensive, it won’t be a major contributor but someday that’ll probably change. Fine tuning the printer to the point where it’ll print the final surface is probably counter productive, to be that smooth it would slow printing down to a crawl at best. The fact that you can run a trowel over it and smooth it out after printing already negates trying to print the finished product, once they find a way to automate making it smooth it’ll help a lot. Otherwise they can always throw up dry wall to cover it.

Curved walls aren’t new and you can get them as intricate as you want you just have to pay for what it costs, which is why most buildings have straight walls it’s a lot cheaper and they’re trying to make a profit on what they build. Not to mention plumbers and hvac workers really like straight walls for obvious reasons and it seems the floor would be a slab so not a lot of other choices. That does only limit some of the walls but artistic work and design has always been the forefront that pushed change not the ability to make the art cheaper, meaning most people don’t care much about the shape of the walls.

It is definitely safer but you’re also trying to improve one of the safer parts of the construction industry. As for how long it lasts it wouldn’t differ much from a brick house, and a wood frame house isn’t nearly as durable but longevity of both types of house will typically come down to maintenance and care more than materials.

The algae based concrete is a new idea for me so I thank you for something new I can learn about. As for its marketability it is a ways away from replacing concrete, assuming that it passes the ASTM protocols and standards this year it’ll have to figure out how to scale it to compete with one of the largest industries in the country and world. They do say they’re working on that but I think they underestimate the size of this hurdle. It’ll definitely scale up simply in terms of making larger batches but it’s already a big set back that their product is more labor to produce and probably more skilled labor to grow the algae. From the articles I’ve read so far it looks like they plan to market it as a small scale green alternative with an emphasis on selling pre-made products directly to consumers. This will definitely pad their bottom line and it also shows they see the cost difference between their product and traditional concrete. However with significant government incentive it’s possible that they cause some major changes to the industry in the coming years

I disagree, but I do respect your opinion may remain different than mine.

We don’t have unregulated capitalism outside of the shadow economy.

Pretty much every country in the world is some form of mixed economy with capitalism as one of its components.

What? Do you even understand what you mean?

Land/housing ownership is also the single greatest barrier to building generational wealth. Owning land is what enables you to keep the output of labor, whether it's yours or someone else's.

Sharing land equally is neither good nor bad for the middle class, only fair. It's good for working class people who don't own land, and it's bad for wealthy people who rent land to others. People who own their own homes and workplaces? Largely unaffected. (Though it depends on the location.)

My take also

You're ridiculous. I KNOW. That was my point - that we don't do unregulated capitalism anymore because it's bad.

Why talk to people if you just type stream-of-consciousness without listening to what people say?

The claim of Apis Cor being shunned by traditional capital market is absurd. Clickbait of the lowest kind.

I was not asking for information for my own good. I was quizzing you because I doubt your knowledge and wanted to judge whether I should keep talking to you. So your wikipedia link does not help.

But you started doing weird stream-of-consciousness comments that only vaguely relate to what I've been saying, and it's impossible to have a convo with someone who does that.

And I’m not going to waste 20 minutes typing on my phone when I can just link the information.

You missed my point completely, so why did you decide to reply? It's like you're cleverbot

Why are you unable to accept that using the less labor intensive response does not mean I don't understand it.