SoftBank invests $200M in Swiss robotics startup Gravis Robotics

SoftBank has announced a $200 million investment in Swiss robotics startup Gravis Robotics, marking what is being described as the largest Series A funding round in construction robotics history. This record-breaking investment comes after Gravis raised $23 million in a funding round in November last year. The Swiss startup, which was spun out of ETH Zurich university, specializes in autonomous technology for heavy construction machinery.

Their software enables existing excavators and heavy equipment to function autonomously, without the need for human drivers, and perform tasks on construction sites. SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son views the rapidly expanding robotics sector as a crucial technology channel for his company, which has previously invested in companies such as OpenAI, Alibaba, and Yahoo!.

Gravis Robotics plans to utilize the funding to expand the deployment of autonomous heavy machinery on a global scale. The company's Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, Dominic Jud, explained that traditional skilled operators rely on subtle physical feedback to navigate and respond to the Earth's complexities. Gravis Robotics' AI technology replicates this human intuition by interpreting machine telemetry and responding to varying subterranean forces and soil mechanics at extremely fast microsecond speeds.

Jud emphasized that the company did not attempt to simplify the technology but instead imbued it with the physical understanding required to handle real-world job sites with unparalleled precision, surpassing human capabilities within the vehicle.