Interviewee
Anna Cheniuntai is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Apis Cor, the most advanced and pioneering robotics 3D printing construction company that prints full-scale buildings on Earth, and soon on the Moon and Mars.
Transcript
Anna Cheniuntai: My name is Anna Cheniuntai, so I'm CEO and co-founder of Apis Cor as you already said. So our company is the construction technology company that develops and manufactures advanced robot equipment and also develops the materials for the robotics construction through the printing. It's basically additive manufacturing for large scale construction. And we print large scale houses like real houses because sometimes when I say construction through the printing, you know, through the printed houses, people think that it's like a small model that can sit on your desktop. And then I say, okay, now it's real houses. And then people are like, what? Wow. Now I'm starting to get into that.
So we are based in Melbourne, Florida, it's a space ghost, you know, where all of the rocket launches and a lot of airspace, industrial machinery, manufacturing companies are sitting. So we are really excited about being here, especially maybe it kind of correlates with my background. I studied space physics at university and now have been really in the heart of the rocket and space home, I would say like a gateway to space, you know, and the Space Coast. It's really inspiring. And so we started ACO together with Nick. He's my husband. So we were a married couple during this business and before epi-core we also worked together. So it's not like our first project before Apis Cor, we actually manufactured the industrial machinery like C machines, routers or other specialized equipment for the manufacturing processes.
And then we had a really massive construction related project for the Olympic games in 2014. So we were responsible to design, fabricate, and deploy about 5,000 navigation signages around the Olympic games area. And it was not just the small ones, you know, sometimes it actually was a huge concrete Stellas that you need to deploy using really heavy vehicles and L lift in system and all of the other specialized equipment. So we successfully did that, made together our first money and then we actually saw during the this Olympic Games project how outdated the construction industry was because we all the time we're delayed in delivering our job to deploy the signages because the building or like the construction site was not, was not ready because the construction companies could not complete it on time because they didn't have enough labor and all of the other headaches happening with the construction processes. And so this is how we started, Nick came up with the idea and design of the completely revolutionary design of the 3D printer because it through the printing was not really new idea, but the design of the robots and the technology itself, that was the room when the true innovation really could happen for the concrete 3D printing.
So since then we delivered the largest 3D printed building on earth in Dubai. It's the official Guinness world record as the largest 3D printed building on earth. We are also finalists of NASA and competition. It's more about the autonomous construction robotics technologies that someday can be deployed on the Moon and Mars to print autonomously and remotely shelters for first to arrive. And so now actually it's a pretty exciting time for us because now we transition from the prototyping stage to the large manufacturing to build more robots and deploy them in the market. So yeah, this is kind of like a short about me and the company.
Now it's a pretty exciting time for us because now we transition from the prototyping stage to the large manufacturing to build more robots and deploy them in the market.
Elisa Muñoz: Wow, this is a great background. I'm glad that everything's working out for you guys. And talking about the news for the company, I know that you guys line up the first round of 3D printed houses to be built this year in the States.. Can you talk a little bit about this and when is this starting?
Anna Cheniuntai: So the first round of the pilot projects in the United States, it's a pilot project with our early adopters and early adopters are the construction companies who followed us for like years and they already understand that they want our solution. They've already looked at all of the other solutions and all of their companies and they understand that now we wanna work with Acore because we understand the difference of their technology and the benefits of the product. And so they are the basically customers who consider leasing out our printers or purchase the printers for example. And while we transition to the man to expand our manufacturing capabilities, we just start with the pilot project with them.
That means that Apis Cor will come and 3D print walls for them and they accomplish the finish of the house. That's kind of like a learning curve and they start marketing it and then their printer is actually gonna be ready for them. You know, it's kind of like a timeline overlap. And for us it's really also important to demonstrate that we can build through the print houses using our technology really like one after another, right? Because today it's also kind of like the problem with this industry that all of the houses, they kind of like fancy pilots and everybody just saying first through the printed house here, first through the printed house there, we don't want to do just a show. We wanna demonstrate that our product, our technology is the actual tool for the construction companies and they use it not just to create the use, right?
They actually can demonstrate the cost savings and how it's actually beneficial for them. So it's more like a really not the demo houses or model houses, it's really the verifying and demonstrating the business model that can work for us and for the customers. And so far we have, as I remember correctly, eight projects already in the process to be, you know, scheduled. We will start with our model house in Melbourne, Florida. Hopefully in June we will start the construction and then we have projects in Alabama, Georgia, Waka, Texas, Montana, and in California.
Elisa Muñoz: Great things coming ahead. You mentioned the pandemic right? And I want to talk about it because it was a pretty rough time for hardware companies, especially construction companies, so how was that like for you and what was the biggest challenge there?
Anna Cheniuntai: In the pandemic time? So back then we actually were raising money from the angel investors and we were assembling the fourth iteration of the printer. And I would say that for us, the biggest challenge was with the fundraising because we were not in a fully operational mode there at that time. Okay. Right. So the story with the fundraising is that we were, back then we were selected for the educational program at Alchem Accelerator. It's one of the top startup accelerators in Silicon Valley and basically worldwide. And the program typically goes in person, right? And we were the first class who had to start doing the virtual program and that was like, wow, like how are we gonna do that? You know, it's a completely different approach, right?
Rather than you talking with real people, mentors, investors. The same time we needed to raise money. And typically when you raise money from angel investors, it's all the time in person meetings. They know you, they, you know, like you build trust with them. And I started just over zoom, you know, and that was really challenging, but that really worked out. And I remember after like a month, I think when I received all the time, no, no, no, because like just imagine somebody calling you over the Zoom and like, oh, you're raising money, how about you invest? Right? And everybody.
It's not the same as if you met an investor in a cafe for example, or you were already introduced by somebody. So, I do remember my first check of $10,000 I think. So we just had a quick conversation over Zoom and the next day he was like, yeah, and I want to invest in your company. It was really like a huge win for me because it was like a month or so and it didn't really work out and it really, really helped me until I continued doing that. So it's kind of like my, you know, memory about 2020. But in general we, you know, we were lucky.
Elisa Muñoz: Okay, well thank you for sharing. What about all the supply chain issues? Did you have anything like that during the pandemic?
Anna Cheniuntai: I think, yes, back then it started and some of the parts that we need for the printer and for Gary, for example, actually the printer is Frank and Mixer is Gary. So we really name all of the robots that we developed. I love it. And yeah, there were a lot of delays with the, some of the really special parts because they were like the, the lead time originally was two months and then they, they mail you, oh we need another two months because we had the labor shortage. So we cannot, we couldn't really complete building the parts for you like motors for example, or controllers. But everything in the United States we source pretty steadily. We use MacMaster for example.
They have a pretty big, you know, stocking and everything. They're more expensive of course, but for prototyping it's really worth it. So I would say that since we were not really in a big scale operational manufacturing mode, we did not have as much impact. Some of the parts, yes, but again, we were like a really small scale back then so we could navigate it somehow, you know, but yeah, it was an impact of the covid for the supply chain.
Elisa Muñoz: And last but not least, do you have any advice for future entrepreneurs or founders in the industry?
Anna Cheniuntai: Pretty tough question because the route of entrepreneur and specifically founder or co-founder, it's not really easy, but I would say that, you know, startup in startup life, you really need to be persistent and just keep trying and be very fast and quick to, and proactive to change the techniques, strategies and try as many things and theories and approaches as fast and soon as possible because then it'll help you to really quickly change their strategy again. And it actually was very important and critical during Covid because nobody really knew what's gonna ha what's gonna be next and how to react.
So sometimes you cannot just sit and wait for the perfect time or perfect people around you really need to try things faster, make mistakes faster, that really will help you to get to the right route or like make the right decision sooner. So I would say that time is a more critical care currency for the startups.
Elisa Muñoz: Okay, well really great advice. Thank you so much Anna, for sharing your experiences and being here today at the podcast.
Anna Cheniuntai: Oh, absolutely. That was a big pleasure for me too. Thank you.
