- SoftBank is in talks to acquire Gravis Robotics, an ETH Zurich spinout, valued at over $500 million.
- The talks follow SoftBank’s July 2026 exit from Boston Dynamics, sold to Hyundai for $325 million.
- No final terms are set, and the $500 million valuation is already facing public scrutiny.
SoftBank spent eight years building, then dismantling, its stake in the robot most people picture when they hear “SoftBank robotics.” In July 2026, it sold its final 9.65% holding in Boston Dynamics to Hyundai Motor Group for an estimated $325 million. Now the Japanese investor is reportedly circling a very different kind of machine: an excavator that can dig a trench without a driver.
According to people familiar with the discussions, SoftBank Group is in discussions to acquire Gravis Robotics AG, a Zurich-based startup developing autonomous hardware and software for excavators and other heavy construction equipment, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg.
A deal could value the company at more than $500 million, though no final decision has been made on size or structure, and the transaction may be completed in stages through secondary share purchases and fresh capital.
Gravis was founded in 2022 as a spinout from ETH Zurich by Ryan Luke Johns, Dominic Jud, Marco Tranzatto, and Burak Çizmeci, working alongside lab mentor Marco Hutter.
The company builds an autonomous platform that lets earthmoving machinery operate with minimal human input, targeting construction, mining, and agriculture. It is backed by IQ Capital, Armada Investment Group, Zacua Ventures, and building-materials group Holcim, and raised $23 million in venture funding in November 2025.
A pivot to autonomous machines
SoftBank’s interest in Gravis is the latest move in a broader reshuffling. Since 2025, the group has folded around 20 robotics holdings, including Agility Robots, Berkshire Grey, Skild AI, and AutoStore, into a new holding company called Robo HD. It has also agreed to buy ABB’s industrial robotics division for $5.4 billion, and is preparing to place its robotics and AI assets under Roze, a new US-based company Bloomberg has reported it plans to eventually list.
Gravis would reportedly sit inside Roze rather than Robo HD. That distinction matters: Boston Dynamics represented SoftBank’s bet on humanoid and quadruped robots built for spectacle as much as utility.
Gravis, by contrast, is narrowly industrial, autonomous machinery aimed at labour shortages on job sites, with none of the consumer-facing ambition that made Pepper or Atlas headline-friendly. The read-through is that Son is trading robots people find impressive for robots that generate revenue in unglamorous sectors already short on workers.
An unproven price tag
The valuation is not going unchallenged.World Construction Today reported that market observers are questioning whether $500 million is justified for a company that young with a single disclosed funding round, though no analyst has put their name to that view on record. Integration risk is also real if SoftBank tries to combine ABB’s factory robotics with Gravis’ outdoor autonomy under one roof.
Construction and mining have been among the slowest sectors to adopt robotics, held back by unstructured outdoor environments that are harder to automate than a factory floor.
If SoftBank closes this deal, the more interesting question is whether Son can prove that physical AI works as well on a job site as it does on a data centre floor.
