Conley Oster

Who they are

Conley Oster is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Raise Robotics — a Penn State structural engineer who went from crane rigging and Gulfstream aerospace internships to landing on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Manufacturing list in 2025.

Person

Conley graduated from Penn State with a Bachelor of Engineering in Structural Engineering in 2018, making the Dean's List. He came up through hands-on industrial roles — Mechanical Engineering intern at Brose Group, Structural Certification Engineer intern at Gulfstream Aerospace, and a stint as a Maintenance Mechanic at the Penn State Bryce Jordan Center before pivoting to the field. After graduation he worked at Rockwell Collins, Bigge Crane and Rigging Co., ML Crane Group, and Apple, holding roles as Technical Sales Representative, Project Manager, and Technical Project Manager — a sequence that put him inside aerospace manufacturing, heavy lift operations, and enterprise tech before he turned 30. He co-founded Raise Robotics in October 2021, a company that deploys modular, semi-autonomous robotic platforms for vertical construction tasks including layout, drilling, and high-precision fastener installation. The through-line is a bias toward the physical: every stop — cranes, aerospace, robotics — involves making large, dangerous things work reliably in the real world. He posts occasionally on LinkedIn about perception systems, field deployment, and construction robotics, and has spoken at the HardTechForum New York, Construction Robotics Summit, Internet of Building Things, and Project Production Institute Technical Conference in 2025 — consistently on the gap between piloting robots and running them at scale.

Company

Raise Robotics closed a $7.75 million seed round on July 30, 2025, led by MaC Venture Capital with participation from Undivided Ventures and existing investors. That follows an earlier 2025 round and brings total funding to over $20 million across multiple rounds — the company has around 17 employees and is headquartered in San Francisco. The most visible recent deployment was in January 2025, when Raise put Universal Robots cobots to work with Harmon on a high-rise fastener installation pilot. The company is now pushing from pilot to commercial deployment, targeting strategic hires and partnerships in high-rise and facade automation.

Market

Raise Robotics plays in construction automation, specifically vertical construction tasks like drilling and fastener installation where labor shortages, safety demands, and rework costs are acute. Its main named competitors are Construction Robotics (masonry) and Renovate Robotics (roofing), with Raise targeting broader precision tasks across high-rise builds — a differentiated niche rather than a direct overlap. Investor confidence in physical AI and robotics hardware is rising across the sector in 2025, with capital flowing into the space from both venture and defense-adjacent channels.

Network

Conley co-founded Raise Robotics alongside Gary Chen (Co-Founder and CEO) and works closely with Rishabh Aggarwal, the company's CTO. A notable real-world deployment signal: Nina Brunn was the first operator to oversee Raise Robotics robots on projects with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, suggesting the team is building field relationships with public-sector clients.

  • Gary Chen· Co-Founder and CEO, Raise Robotics
  • Rishabh Aggarwal· CTO, Raise Robotics
  • Nina Brunn· Field operator / client contact, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission projects

How they likely show up

  • Roles at Bigge Crane, ML Crane Group, and Gulfstream before founding Raise → comfort operating in high-stakes, safety-critical physical environments; unlikely to be impressed by demos that haven't been stress-tested in the field.
  • Progression from Technical Sales Rep to Project Manager to Technical Project Manager → can move between customer-facing and execution contexts; probably thinks about adoption and deployment in the same breath as engineering.
  • Consistent 2025 speaking circuit (HardTechForum, Construction Robotics Summit, Internet of Building Things, Project Production Institute) → comfortable representing the company publicly and likely views external visibility as a business development tool, not just PR.
  • Panel topic at Internet of Building Things was specifically 'Implementation Gap: From Pilot to Program' → his public focus is on the hard operational problem of scaling, not the excitement of early demos.
  • Co-founder track started at 27, straight out of an Apple Technical Project Manager role → high agency, willing to make a sharp career break when he sees a market gap; not a slow mover.
  • Collaboration with Stanford on robotics, AI, and digital twin projects → stays connected to the research side, which may inform how he evaluates new technology claims.

Conversation tips

  • → Lead with field deployment specifics — his public writing references building and deploying real perception systems, so concrete operational questions will land better than abstract product pitches.
  • → The pilot-to-program gap is his stated focus on the conference circuit — asking what it actually takes to move a construction site from a 6-week pilot to a 12-month program will get a real answer.
  • → He has a structural engineering background, not software — don't assume he thinks in software cycles; frame timelines and reliability in terms of jobsite tolerances and safety outcomes.
  • → Reference the Harmon high-rise deployment or the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission work — these are named, real projects he can speak to in detail.
  • → Possibly — given the Forbes 30 Under 30 recognition is recent, he may be fielding more inbound attention than usual; be specific about why you're talking to him rather than any construction robotics founder.

Toolbox

Openers

  • Open on the January 2025 Harmon deployment — Raise put Universal Robots cobots on a high-rise fastener installation job, which is a very specific proof point; ask what they learned from running it versus what they expected going in.
  • Reference his panel title at the Internet of Building Things: 'Implementation Gap: From Pilot to Program' — that's the exact problem he's publicly focused on, and opening there signals you've done more than skim his LinkedIn.
  • Mention the Forbes 30 Under 30 Manufacturing recognition in 2025 alongside the July 2025 seed close — the back-to-back of public validation and fresh capital is a natural moment to ask where Raise goes next.

Discovery questions

  1. The Harmon high-rise pilot used Universal Robots cobots for fastener installation — what did that deployment reveal about the gap between the robot's spec and what a real jobsite actually demands?
  2. You spoke on the pilot-to-program gap at the Internet of Building Things — what's the single biggest reason a construction team gets stuck at pilot and never scales to program?
  3. Raise targets vertical construction broadly while Construction Robotics focuses on masonry and Renovate Robotics on roofing — how do you decide which precision tasks to prioritize next when the platform is modular?

Avoid

Don't open with generic construction-tech optimism or broad 'labor shortage' framing — he lives inside that problem every day and will engage far more readily with someone who asks about specific deployment constraints than someone who narrates the market back at him.

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Sources

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Generated by briefthecall.com from public web sources on August 22, 2026. Each claim is linked to its source above.

Automatically generated by AI from public sources. May be inaccurate or out of date. Remove or correct this profile →