SoftBank Leads $200M Round for Gravis to Automate Excavators
lukas_m_ziegler · x · 2026-08-20
SoftBank invested $200M into Gravis Robotics' Series A, the largest round in construction robotics history. The ETH Zurich spinout retrofits existing excavators with autonomous control. Its core software runs on machines from Caterpillar, Volvo, John Deere, Hitachi, and 5 other manufacturers. The key commercial moat is mixed-fleet compatibility, as 2/3 of global heavy equipment demand sits outside the top 3 makers. Claims include 30% productivity gains over peak manual operations.
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