Gravis Robotics Secures $200M Series A for Autonomous Construction
The construction industry is traditionally slow to adopt automation, but increasing demand for infrastructure repairs, AI data center construction, and U.S. reshoring and defense projects may accelerate change. Gravis Robotics announced today that SoftBank will invest $200 million in its Series A round, marking what the company claims is the largest funding round in construction robotics history.
"To build the future, we need to change the world, literally," said Ryan Luke Johns, co-founder and CEO of Gravis Robotics. "Whether we are building housing, modernizing energy grids, or scaling data centers, every project starts with moving earth. That foundational work has been the bottleneck slowing down the entire built environment."
"Our machines are built for the messy, unscripted reality of live jobsites that breaks traditional automation," he added. "With SoftBank's backing, we can hire the best builders and engineers, put Gravis-powered autonomy on every major jobsite, and scale faster than anyone thought possible."
Gravis Robotics, spun out of ETH Zurich in 2022, aims to bring "software-defined intelligence to an industry that has relied on purely mechanical hardware for decades." The Zurich-based company retrofits existing excavators and other construction equipment with its Gravis Rack autonomous control kit and software.
Gravis emphasizes that its physical AI is designed for dynamic, unstructured environments, unlike typical AI that operates in static settings. The company uses synthetic training to simulate billions of cubic yards of virtual material, from soft clay to rock-filled soil, bridging the "sim-to-real gap" and enabling factory-level precision on unpredictable construction sites.
"Skilled operators read the earth through subtle physical feedback," said Dominic Jud, co-founder and CTO. "Our AI takes that same physical input and grounds it in machine telemetry, responding to varying subterranean forces and soil mechanics at microsecond speeds."
The heavy equipment market is highly fragmented, with about two-thirds of global demand outside the top three manufacturers. Gravis Robotics argues that contractors should not be locked into a single-brand ecosystem, so its AI world model incorporates performance characteristics from multiple manufacturers rather than imitating an individual operator.
The Gravis Rack serves as an operating system for mixed fleets, and it has been installed on machinery from Caterpillar, Case, Develon, John Deere, JCB, Hitachi, Sumitomo, Yanmar, Volvo, and more. The company claims that its learning-based models can adapt to machine variations, allowing the same core software to drive a compact excavator or a machine five times larger without custom reprogramming.
Gravis reports up to 30% productivity improvement over peak manual operations, and its Slate interface enhances worksite safety. The software offers a spectrum from AI-augmented manual control to full autonomy. With Gravis Copilot, operators stay in the cab with real-time 3D guidance and hazard detection; in full autonomy mode, they can supervise entire robotic fleets. Every machine with the kit acts as a mobile sensor, automating surveying and hazard mapping.
Gravis Robotics says its Series A funding will help deploy autonomous heavy machinery across global jobsites. SoftBank's managing director Dai Sakata commented, "Physical AI is central to SoftBank's vision for the next phase of AI. Gravis is bringing AI-powered autonomy to construction, helping build smarter, more efficient infrastructure."
The company has already deployed systems on four continents and was recently selected to lead an $8 million U.K. government-backed CAM Pathfinder project with Flannery Plant Hire. The retrofit of excavator fleets aims to provide contractors with turnkey access to autonomous machinery, supporting Britain's $716 billion infrastructure pipeline.