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Former MIT Vice President Israel Ruiz has raised a $4.5 million seed investment from his former employer to launch WoHo, a technology platform intended to streamline the building design and construction process.
The investment round was led by The Engine, the venture firm spun out of MIT that invests in early-stage Tough Tech companies tackling issues like housing affordability.
WoHo, which is short for “World Home,” aims to build modular construction factories close to construction hubs, simplifying the logistics, lowering the costs and reducing the environmental footprint of its buildings. The factories will produce WoHo components with span widths ranging from 16 to 20 feet that can be connected or separated three-dimensionally based on specific project needs. These components assemble into a structural grid, particularly suited for residential and other compatible retail, lab or parking uses.
“While modular construction has existed for decades it has suffered from an association with low-end, low-quality materials. Its lack of momentum can be attributed to segmented supply chains for materials sourcing and transportation,” Ruiz said in a statement. “Creating a single, standardized platform for design, manufacture and construction will disrupt home and multi-use buildings, as developers and suppliers can more quickly and efficiently meet sustainability standards to address affordability and the housing shortage.”
WoHo also announced a partnership with LafargeHolcim in the United States.
According to a McKinsey report, by 2030 nearly $130 billion will be spent on modular home construction in the U.S. and Europe yet there’s a backlog of supply in regions with labor shortages or high variability in onsite construction conditions due to weather seasonality. WoHo hopes to lower the costs of construction by more than 20 percent, shrink project delivery time by 50 percent and reduce the ecological footprint of buildings by 70 percent.
WoHo’s leaders include Anton Garcia-Abril, a professor of the School of Architecture at MIT and his co-founder of Ensamble Studio, Debora Mesa, who is the Ventulett Chair in Architectural Design at Georgia Tech. Garcia-Abril and Mesa have worked over the last two decades to prototype and test the company’s modular approach.
WoHo is conducting its first pilot project at WoHo Lab in Madrid and plans to build one in Boston in early 2021. This seed capital will be used to build out U.S. manufacturing, further partner pilots, broaden the team and help the company scale.
