HyperTunnel will use Vinci鈥檚 money to help pay for trialling its 鈥榮warm bot鈥� technology.
The investment strengthens HyperTunnel鈥檚 connections with Vinci Construction technical departments. HyperTunnel recently joined Vinci鈥檚 innovation platform Leonard as a member of its start-up accelerator programme, Catalyst. HyperTunnel also won a competition last year that Leonard co-organises with Ferrovial and Cemex Ventures.
Hypertunnel was started up in Basingstoke in 2018 by two men with no experience of engineering or construction but with an idea to build tunnels using a combination of horizontal directional drilling, artificial intelligence and 3D printing.
The proposed method involves injecting the lining of a tunnel into the ground and then removing the waste using a swarm of small autonomous robotic vehicles.
鈥淗yperTunnel鈥檚 technology can be truly game-changing when it comes to improving the safety and sustainability of underground construction projects,鈥� said Guillaume Bazouin, head of start-up and intrapreneurs programs at Leonard. 鈥淚t strongly aligns with our goals of rapidly responding to the climate emergency by enabling technological advances that have a substantial environmental impact. HyperTunnel also boasts exceptional leadership and engineering teams, and we are looking to support their great success in the near future.鈥�
HyperTunnel co-founder Jeremy Hammond said: 鈥淰inci and Leonard are real experts when it comes to construction innovation, so to get their backing in such a concrete and substantial way means we must be doing something right. They can see the huge potential of the technologies we鈥檙e developing, and they share our passion for improving how the world works. We鈥檙e excited to see what we can achieve together over the coming months.鈥�
Last week the European Innovation Council awarded HyperTunnel a 鈧�1.88m grant under its accelerator scheme. The funding will be used to complete the development of HyperTunnel鈥檚 swarm robotics underground construction platform.
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