This startup’s self-driving excavators help dig up $600M in new funding

Bedrock Robotics, a startup founded in 2024, has successfully raised $600 million in a Series C funding round, valuing the company at $4.1 billion. The funding, led by CapitalG and Emergence Capital, is a significant milestone for the two-year-old company. The startup's autonomous excavators, which have been tested and piloted, are now being used on active construction sites.

These self-driving kits can be retrofitted onto various construction vehicles. Bedrock's technology is currently operational at a Nevada water treatment facility, a Texas earthwork site, and a 1.2 million-cubic-yard civil construction project in California.

The company's co-founder and CEO, Boris Sofman, previously led Waymo's self-driving trucks program and co-founded Anki Robotics, known for its popular Cozmo consumer robot. Other co-founders include Waymo veterans Kevin Peterson and Ajay Gummalla. Tom Eliaz, with experience at Segment and Twilio, serves as the VP of engineering and hardware. The funding will enable Bedrock to expand its operations, deploying its technology at more construction sites and scaling its teams and infrastructure to support customers.

The autonomous excavators are particularly valuable due to a shortage of skilled operators. Mastering an excavator can take five years or more, and many construction workers are approaching retirement age. The Associated Builders and Contractors estimate that over 40% of construction workers will retire in the next five years. Bedrock believes that autonomous driving technology can help address this labor gap.

The startup's latest partner is Haydon, a general contractor from Arizona, who plans to use Bedrock-equipped machines on various projects, including advanced manufacturing facilities and healthcare facilities.

New investors in the round include US Innovative Technology Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Temasek, alongside existing investors such as 8VC, Georgian, Valor Equity Partners, Xora, Eclipse, Perry Creek Capital, and Nvidia. The company also announced two new executive hires to support its commercial operations: Amy Jones Satrom, a veteran of Amazon, Nuro, and Uber, as its vice president of operations, and Lando Juarez, formerly head of legal for Uber's autonomous mobility and delivery business, as its general counsel.