- SoftBank has invested $200 million in Gravis Robotics, valuing the company at $1 billion.
- Gravis says this is the largest Series A funding round ever in construction robotics.
- Earlier, there were reports that SoftBank was thinking about buying Gravis for less than $500 million.
SoftBank has invested $200 million in Gravis Robotics, valuing the Zurich-based startup at $1 billion. The company fits autonomy kits onto excavators and other heavy machinery instead of building new equipment from scratch.
The round is one of the largest Series A raises in construction robotics to date and nearly double the amount first discussed, according to Gravis. Ryan Luke Johns, the company’s CEO and co-founder. He said the funding will let Gravis “hire the best builders and engineers, put Gravis-powered autonomy on every major jobsite, and scale faster than anyone thought possible.”
SoftBank’s interest in Gravis was expected. In July, Tech Funding News reported that the Japanese investor was talking about buying the startup, possibly for more than $500 million, according to sources cited by Bloomberg. At the time, no deal structure had been finalised, with SoftBank weighing whether to buy existing shares, inject fresh capital, or both.
McKinsey estimated that global construction output was about $13 trillion in 2023, but productivity grew by only 10% from 2000 to 2022, while manufacturing improved by 90%. In the meantime, the US will need 349,000 more construction workers in 2026 to meet demand.
How Gravis works and who its competitors are
Gravis was founded in 2022 as a spinout from ETH Zurich by Johns and Dominic Jud, co-founder and chief technology officer, who met in Marco Hutter’s robotics lab. Hutter is now also a co-founder and board member of the company, which now employs about 75 people.
Gravis’ main product, the Gravis Rack, combines sensors, computing, and software into a kit that attaches to existing excavators and heavy machinery. It works with over a dozen brands and models, from 10-ton machines to larger Caterpillar equipment.
Gravis says roughly two-thirds of global heavy-equipment demand sits outside the top three manufacturers, and the Rack has been installed on brands including Caterpillar, Case, Develon, John Deere, JCB, Hitachi, Sumitomo, Yanmar, and Volvo, without custom reprogramming per machine.
Right now, about 70% of its machines are used for digging, and operators can switch between manual and autonomous modes. Gravis says its technology is used in seven countries by customers like Holcim, Taylor Woodrow, and HD Hyundai.
Jud, Gravis’ co-founder and chief technology officer, said the technical challenge differs from that of other physical AI systems because an excavator reshapes the ground it works on with every pass, rather than navigating a static environment.
“Skilled operators read the earth through subtle physical feedback, listening to the engine strain, sensing the machine vibration, and reacting to hydraulic resistance. Our AI takes that same physical input and grounds it in machine telemetry, responding to varying subterranean forces and soil mechanics at microsecond speeds,” Jud said.
Gravis competes with Bedrock Robotics, started by former Waymo engineers, that raised $270 million in February at a $1.75 billion valuation and plans to launch fully operator-less excavators this year.
Built Robotics also offers a retrofit-kit approach. Teleo is developing technology that lets a single operator control multiple machines remotely, and Caterpillar sells autonomous excavators, loaders, dozers, haul trucks, and compactors.
Gravis’ edge is its cross-manufacturer compatibility, which appeals to companies unwilling to replace their entire fleet.
The investment case and what’s ahead
This is Gravis’ second funding round in under a year. TFN reported on its $23 million round in November 2025, co-led by IQ Capital and Zacua Ventures, with Pear VC, Sunna Ventures, Armada Investment, and Holcim also joining. With SoftBank’s new $200 million investment, Gravis’ total disclosed funding is now about $223 million.
This investment fits into SoftBank’s larger strategy. The group is buying ABB’s industrial robotics division for $5.4 billion and has combined about 20 robotics companies, including Skild AI, Agile Robots, and AutoStore, into a new company called Robo HD.
Archie Muirhead, partner at IQ Capital, said: “Ryan and the Gravis team identified a fundamental constraint facing construction at a time when demand for new infrastructure from compute to energy is accelerating — a shortage of skilled operators. Leveraging years of research in reinforcement learning and control policy at ETH Zurich, Gravis’ technology is already delivering measurable productivity gains on live projects across four continents. This funding cements Gravis’ position as the leading construction autonomy company building into an enormous global total addressable market.”
Gravis plans to use the new funding to hire more staff, grow internationally, and put more autonomous machines into commercial use. This includes expanding partnerships, such as its deal with Flannery, which Gravis describes as the UK’s largest provider of operated heavy-equipment rentals, and which allows contractors to rent excavators with the Gravis Rack.
An $8 million UK government-backed project with Flannery will test the system on six excavators for trenching, bulk excavation, and truck loading, which Gravis frames as support for Britain’s $716 billion infrastructure pipeline.
