Gravis Robotics, a Swiss maker of autonomy systems for construction machinery, raised a $200m Series A from SoftBank on 17 August 2026. The company said it is the largest Series A in construction robotics history.
SoftBank is the only investor named in Gravis's announcement, and Tech.eu described it as the sole investor in the round. The Next Web called it the lead investor. Gravis did not disclose a valuation, but EU-Startups, cited by Trending Topics, reported about $1bn post-money.
Gravis said the money will support a global rollout of autonomous systems across heavy-equipment fleets, hiring of engineers and expansion to more jobsites.
“We didn't try to simplify the world for our software; we gave it the physical intuition to handle real jobsites”Dominic Jud, CTO and co-founder, Gravis Robotics
What Gravis does
Gravis was founded in 2022 as a spinout of the Robotic Systems Lab at ETH Zurich. It builds AI software and hardware that turn existing excavators and other heavy machines into autonomous ones, rather than selling new vehicles.
Its retrofit kit, the Gravis Rack, is designed to fit machines from many makers, including Caterpillar, Case, Develon, John Deere, JCB, Hitachi, Sumitomo, Yanmar and Volvo. A second product, Gravis Copilot, offers operator assistance, and full autonomy lets one supervisor oversee several machines. The company claims productivity gains of up to 30% over peak manual operation, a figure that has not been independently checked.
Chief technology officer Dominic Jud described the approach in the announcement: "We didn't try to simplify the world for our software; we gave it the physical intuition to handle real jobsites."
Johns said in the announcement that the company's machines are built for the messy, unscripted reality of live jobsites, which he said breaks traditional automation.
Who is behind it
Ryan Luke Johns is co-founder and chief executive, and Dominic Jud is co-founder and chief technology officer. Trending Topics also named Marco Hutter, an ETH robotics professor, as a co-founder and board member.
Gravis has offices in Zurich, Austin in Texas, and Oxford in the UK. Its headcount was not disclosed in the sources.
SoftBank's interest
SoftBank Group's Dai Sakata, a managing director, said physical AI is central to SoftBank's vision for the next phase of AI. Tech.eu noted that SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son sees robotics as a key area for investment.
Bloomberg had reported in late July that SoftBank was in talks that would have valued Gravis at more than $500m, Trending Topics said, so the announced round was foreshadowed.
The funding so far
Before this round, Gravis raised $23m in November 2025, co-led by IQ Capital and Zacua Ventures, with Pear VC, Sunna Ventures, Armada Investment and Holcim also taking part, according to Trending Topics.
The company also leads an $8m UK government-backed project, called CAM Pathfinder, with the plant-hire firm Flannery Plant Hire to retrofit excavator fleets. The Next Web said Gravis reports deployments on four continents but named no paying customers.
Gravis did not name customers in the announcement; the Next Web noted that the manufacturer list describes compatibility, not a customer roster.
Company website: gravisrobotics.com