In morning trade the FBR Ltd (ASX: FBR) share price has returned from a trading halt and rocketed higher.
At the time of writing the robotics company's shares are up 21% to 20 cents.
Why are FBR's shares rocketing higher?
This morning FBR, formerly known as Fastbrick Robotics, provided the market with an update on its Hadrian X programme.
Hadrian X is the company's bricklaying robot which can lay 1,000 standard brick equivalents per hour compared to the 400 bricks per day that the typical Australian bricklayer can lay.
Today's update revealed that it has successfully demonstrated its robotic home building technology by building a 180-metre squared, 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom home structure in less than the targeted total elapsed time of three days. This was a technical milestone that was set for the company in 2015.
Management advised that this represents the most significant technical milestone completed to date in the Hadrian X programme and follows the recent successful completion of Factory Acceptance Testing of the construction robot.
FBR CEO Mike Pivac appeared to be very pleased with the news.
He said: "We are all justifiably proud and excited to have achieved this world first milestone for FBR. We now have the world's only fully automated, end-to-end bricklaying solution, with a massive market waiting for it."
Before adding that: "We now begin the next exciting phase for the company, as we execute our global commercialisation strategy to capitalise on the significant demand for our technology."
What now?
Management has advised that it will now take everything it has learned to date in the Hadrian X programme and make some refinements before demonstrating the technology to key commercial stakeholders.
In addition to this, this milestone means that a total of 173.27 million shares will be issued to staff members and the founders of the company.
Should you invest?
While I think that FBR's technology is impressive and could have significant potential, until it has binding agreements and is generating meaningful revenues I'm going to sit this one out and focus on profitable small cap tech shares such as Bravura Solutions Ltd (ASX: BVS) and Citadel Group Ltd (ASX: CGL).
But I'll be keeping a close eye on FBR's progress over the next 12 months.
