New impetus for 011h, the developer specialized in sustainable housing and in the digitalization of the construction process founded by Lucas Carné and José Manuel Villanueva, former owners of Privalia. After closing a 25 million euro financing round last summer, the startup has just secured the support of the Generalitat, which has granted it a participatory loan of two million euros through Avançsa, the Company for Industrial Promotion and Location of Catalonia.
The funds that 011h will receive come from the Innova Energy Tech line, which collaborates with the Catalan Energy Institute and seeks to promote the maximum level of energy saving and efficiency, the use of indigenous renewable energy sources, and the promotion of energy research and innovation. "011h buildings guarantee an A on their energy label and want to go further to, in the future, be able to become buildings with zero or positive emissions," Avançsa points out to justify this investment.
011h argues that a new way of building is possible and for this reason has developed a digital platform and an innovative system that bets on industrialized construction and the digitalization of each of the components involved in a project. According to the firm, this method can reduce CO₂ emissions by 90% and shorten construction times by 35%. Once the model was validated with the construction of the first housing developments, such as the one built in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, last July the new generation construction company closed a Series A round of 25 million euros led by the Swiss fund Redalpine. Breega and the impact fund SeayaAndromeda also participated, in addition to the initial investors, which include Foundamental and A/O Proptech.
The developer currently has a team of 29 people and its forecast was to close the year with the construction of a hundred sustainable homes, a figure that could double this 2023. The promoters of 011h believe that the construction industry needs to make a radical change, as it uses "unsustainable materials such as concrete and steel" and is based on the use of artisanal methods that require a lot of labor in a context of scarcity and low professional qualification. "As a consequence, residential construction has become expensive, unreliable, and difficult to scale," denounce the entrepreneurs, who also advocate for a shift towards a sustainable construction model due to the need to curb climate change. "Buildings generate around 40% of global CO₂ emissions," they point out.
011h is committed to using materials such as wood and incorporating the principles of the circular economy into construction. However, its model is mainly based on an intensive use of technology, which means digitizing the entire construction process, so, for example, before starting a work, it is known exactly how many nails will be used.