Bedrock Robotics Raises $600 Million for Autonomous Excavators at $4.1 Billion Value
By Kirsten Korosec · · TexaHub · Robotics, AI in Industry
Bedrock Robotics raised $600 million in a Series C round co-led by CapitalG and Emergence Capital, valuing the autonomous construction startup at $4.1 billion.
The Round
Bedrock Robotics, a San Francisco startup that builds self-driving systems for construction machinery, said on October 26 that it had raised $600 million in a Series C round at a valuation of $4.1 billion. The round was co-led by CapitalG, Alphabet's growth fund, and Emergence Capital. [1]
New investors included the US Innovative Technology Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners and Temasek. Existing backers 8VC, Georgian, Valor Equity Partners, Xora, Eclipse, Perry Creek Capital and Nvidia also took part. Bedrock was founded in 2024 and has raised close to $1 billion to date. [1]
The raise came about two months after the company moved its excavators out of testing and pilot programmes and onto active construction sites. [1]
Retrofit Kit for Excavators
Bedrock sells a self-driving kit that is retrofitted onto existing construction and worksite vehicles. The company has concentrated on excavators, citing a shortage of skilled operators; it says learning to run an excavator well takes five years or more. The Associated Builders and Contractors estimates that more than 40% of construction workers will retire within five years. [1]
Current deployments include a water treatment facility in Nevada, an earthwork site run by Champion Site Prep in Texas, and a 1.2 million cubic yard civil sitework project with Zachry Construction Corporation. The newest partner is Haydon, an Arizona general contractor that plans to use the system on advanced manufacturing sites, water and wastewater plants, data centres and healthcare facilities. [1]
Waymo Veterans at the Helm
Chief executive Boris Sofman previously led Waymo's self-driving trucks programme, which has since been shut down, and earlier co-founded the consumer robotics company Anki. Co-founders Kevin Peterson, the chief technology officer, and Ajay Gummalla, vice president of engineering and infrastructure, also came from Waymo. The fourth co-founder, Tom Eliaz, previously worked at Segment and Twilio. [1]
The company also hired Amy Jones Satrom, formerly of Amazon, Nuro and Uber, as vice president of operations, and Lando Juarez, previously head of legal for Uber's autonomous mobility and delivery business, as general counsel. Bedrock said the funds would go toward commercial work, deployments at more construction sites and larger teams and field infrastructure. "The next challenge is delivering that capability to more contractors as a dependable part of how projects get built," Sofman said. [1]
Sources
[1] This startup's self-driving excavators help dig up $600M in new funding — TechCrunch