The uphill journey of building a startup: Fabrica AI’s founders share key lessons

In 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic confined Cambridge University engineering student Keefe Wayne Teo to remote classes at home, the robotics aficionado caught a different kind of bug – an entrepreneurial one.   

The 24-year-old roboticist put his master’s degree studies on hold and set up a company with two friends. 

“I wanted to be able to do what I want to the fullest extent, and be challenged to the fullest extent,” said Keefe. “That gives me purpose.”  

Keefe and his original co-founders who all met in Cambridge’s Hackbridge society, worked on developing an autonomous tiling robot, a niche area in the building and construction industry.  

Then, a wrench was thrown into the plans. 

The two co-founders exited for corporate jobs leaving Keefe in a dilemma – to complete his master's degree or press on with Fabrica? 

That’s when he called upon fellow Cambridge engineering student Jakub Suchánek, to join him in the business venture. “I was at the dentists when he called”, joked Jakub, who had already been toying with the idea of starting his own company at that time.  

“Usually in a startup, on average, you don’t make more money than just working (in a big corporate). But I feel like there’s a lot more stuff that you can change in the world by creating a new company.”
 
Without reservation, Jakub joined Keefe at Fabrica as the company’s CEO, and a few weeks later, brought in Ronald Luc, a fellow Cambridge schoolmate as the company’s CTO. Together, they set a new direction for the company – creating a software platform to design robots through simulation.  

(L to R) Co-founder of Fabrica AI Keefe Wayne Teo; co-founder and CEO, Jakub Suchánek; and co-founder and CTO Ronald Luc on a hike in Europe.

“Currently it usually takes three to fifteen years to develop a new robot, “said Jakub, “The only way to evaluate such design concepts is to build it and see how it works. We want to make it possible to ask design questions in simulation and then see how it behaves in the real world.”  

They applied this idea to building a tile-grouting robot, with an eye to marketing it to construction companies in labour-tight countries. Three years on, this robot, which can boost productivity by up to five times, is being piloted on construction sites across Singapore managed by companies like Woh Hup and BHCC Construction.  

The startup, which has raised over US$2.3 million, now has a 20-person team in its Singapore office.  

Keefe and Jakub share four key lessons from their entrepreneurial journey here: 

Every startup begins with an idea to solve a problem. For Fabrica, turbo-charging the speed of creating a tile-grouting robot addresses labour constraints and costs faced by the construction industry in manpower-strapped countries.  

Beyond improving productivity, robot development has another impact.

“Speeding up robotic development is particularly impactful as it opens up a lot of new options for humanity, such as helping humans accomplish tasks they’re not good at and expanding into areas like outer space,” said Jakub, Fabrica AI’s chief executive. 

All three partners are engineering whizzes, having won multiple awards at international science Olympiads and competitions like NASA SpaceApps. But inventing a grouting robot was the most complicated challenge yet.  

“We were over-optimistic: we expected the robot to be done within half a year. It turned out we took three years,” said Jakub. 

Despite the delay, they did not return to their studies. They threw in their lot with Fabrica, driven by their conviction that they had a strong business idea.  

The encouragement of their business and ecosystem partners was critical, too. 

Strong partnerships have been instrumental in getting Fabrica to where it is today. 

Through Keefe’s contacts with the Building Construction Authority of Singapore (BCA), Fabrica connected with construction companies which welcomed them to demonstrate use cases for its robot.  

Jakub (in background) with partner construction company demonstrating the autonomous tiling robot at a construction site. Photo credit: Fabrica AI. 

Fabrica’s partnership with BCA as well as the Singapore Institute of Technology’s technical consultants and construction experts gave the team insights into the industry’s needs. This helped them to improve the robot’s functions and finetune technical processes. 

Subsequently, the startup landed several more construction companies as customers. By doing demos for these companies, who welcomed them on-site to understand the construction industry’s needs, the team gleaned practical insights that informed their approach to improving the robot’s design. 

With more business, the team needed more talent. They turned to SGInnovate’s Summation Programme, which connects top talent with Deep Tech projects – linking Fabrica with highly driven interns and subsidising their training costs. 

READ: An apprentice's journey in a hardware startup (Fabrica AI) 

WATCH: Inside a hardware startup in Singapore 

Hardware startups cannot avoid high initial expenses to design, test and prototype multiple iterations of their product.  

Fabrica learnt to run a tight ship in the early stages. The team held off buying a vehicle or renting office space for as long as possible, while raising funds from various sources, including their Cambridge professor and construction company BHCC.   

“Our burn rate was lower than typical hardware startups because Jakub and I saved on rent – a big expense item – by staying at my parents’ house and using their garage to develop the first prototype,” recalled Keefe. “We also learnt to procure just enough parts for each prototype robot rather than prematurely anticipating a scale in production and thus buying in bulk.” 

(L to R) The evolution of Fabrica AI’s autonomous grouting robot - from version 1 to 3.  

Over time, Fabrica has also honed the art of efficiency in areas such as hiring and product development. The team discovered that reaching out to specific candidates on LinkedIn has helped them find the right people more quickly, rather than interviewing dozens of people unlikely to make the cut.  

Another area of time savings is buying quality commercial parts off the shelf, rather than trying to engineer their own.  

“We learnt to be very disciplined in designing our core ideas using commercial parts, and keep innovation in (secondary) hardware to the minimum,” explained Keefe. “This may sound counter-intuitive, but not reinventing the wheelcan help you to focus on your core innovation, and save money in the longer run.”

READ: How a career obstacle unlocked this software engineer’s passion for programming  

Like most startups, Fabrica encountered problems such as funding shortages, and a failed demonstration threatened its survival. But strong support from family and staff proved a lifesaver.  

At the team’s lowest point roughly half a year after its 2022 incorporation, Fabrica’s funds were running dangerously low and they were forced to give one month’s notice to all its staff.

READ: An empathetic mentoring approach helping others advance in Singapore’s robotics sector

(L to R): Chuan Hua, a 2022 summer holiday intern, Herman, an intern turned full-timer and Wai Boon. Nelson is seated next to Keefe. 

The employees surprised them by not only pledging to stay on without pay after the month, but also working overtime to accelerate progress. Among them was the head of engineering operations, Nelson Ng, who had left his job at Micron to join Fabrica. “He told us he would stay on until he was down to his last two months of savings,” recalled Keefe.  

Thankfully, the team received another wave of investment right at the last moment and avoided the worst case scenario. But the founders were moved by their team's dedication to and belief in the startup. “With so many people supporting us," said Keefe, “it gives us the drive and purpose to carry on.” 

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