Founder Salar al Khafaji, after selling to Palantir, backs $32 million push for autonomous construction robots

Salar al Khafaji, the entrepreneur behind a new push for autonomous construction, is betting that robots can help ease labor constraints at job sites. Yahoo Finance reported that Khafaji has raised $32 million in a new round led by Khosla Ventures, with plans to bring his fleet of autonomous bricklaying robots to the United States this year.

The funding comes on the heels of a major corporate milestone for Khafaji. Yahoo Finance said he previously sold his last company to Palantir, a company best known for enterprise data platforms used in areas like defense, energy, and other large-scale industrial operations.

Khafaji’s latest effort targets a narrow but labor-intensive step in building: laying bricks. An autonomous bricklaying system aims to reduce the amount of manual work required on repetitive tasks, while standardizing output and speeding up certain parts of the construction process.

While the report describes the initiative as a robotic solution to the construction labor crisis, it does not, in the details available here, spell out the specific robot models, performance benchmarks, safety certifications, or timelines for commercial deployments. It also does not clarify what percentage of project workflows the robots are intended to handle, beyond the bricklaying portion.

The Khosla Ventures-led round highlights investor interest in robotics that can be deployed in hard-to-staff, high-volume manual work. Khosla Ventures is a technology and deep-tech investor that has backed a range of hardware-intensive companies, and a construction-focused robot business represents a continued push toward automation outside of traditionally factory-heavy settings.

Palantir’s involvement in Khafaji’s history may reflect a broader pattern in enterprise robotics and industrial automation, where companies look for ways to integrate operational data, planning, and monitoring. But the available reporting here does not indicate a new contractual relationship between Palantir and Khafaji’s robot venture, nor does it describe any partnership structure.

For now, many of the key operational questions remain unanswered in the public details provided here, including which U.S. markets or building types are targeted first, whether the robots are designed for specific materials or wall geometries, and how the company intends to scale deployments across varying job sites.

What to watch next is whether the company provides concrete deployment updates in the U.S., including pilot site announcements, construction partners, and measurable outcomes such as speed, cost, and defect rates versus traditional bricklaying. Additional clarity on safety and compliance processes will also be important for any broader roll-out.