Zurich-based Gravis Robotics, a robotic excavator platform innovating world development, has immediately introduced €19 million ($23 million) in new funding, together with a brand new wave of business partnerships.
The funding was co-led by IQ Capital and Zacua Ventures, with Pear VC, Imad (CVC of Nesma & Companions), Sunna Ventures, Armada Funding and Holcim, and will likely be used to speed up Gravis’ world rollout, develop the group, and broaden Gravis’ rising community of partnerships with OEMs, contractors, and sellers.
Ryan Luke Johns, CEO and co-founder of Gravis Robotics, says: “The quickest path to autonomy is delivering productiveness immediately. By giving operators real-time 3D intelligence and the flexibility to shift seamlessly between autonomy and augmented management, we cowl extra of the work, speed up adoption, and create the info pipeline wanted to be taught new capabilities from the business’s hardest jobs.”
In 2025, a number of European robotics and physical-AI startups secured new capital alongside Gravis Robotics’ spherical, together with London’s Neuracore with €2.5 million to advance robot-learning infrastructure; Zürich’s Flexion with €43 million to develop management programs for humanoid robots; Swiss ETH-spin-out mimic with €13.8 million for its dexterous physical-AI platform; Germany’s Power Robotics with €11.5 million for autonomous industrial inspection; and Romania’s .lumen with an EU-funded €11 million grant supporting urban-robotics deployment.
Collectively, these increase the disclosed 2025 whole to roughly €82 million (excluding .lumen’s grant), illustrating heightened funding into physical-AI and field-ready robotics throughout Europe.
Inside this context, Gravis Robotics stands out as one of many few corporations making use of autonomy particularly to construction-site heavy equipment, and its funding provides to a rising robotics cluster in Switzerland, the place different main rounds (Flexion and mimic) have been additionally recorded this yr.
Archie Muirhead, accomplice at IQ Capital provides: “Gravis stands out, not only for its technical brilliance, however for a way a lot it’s already achieved. The group’s considerate, grounded method to autonomy – deploying actual programs with actual crews – has led to trusted partnerships with a few of the largest world development corporations and OEMs and invaluable information from time-in-field. This large and unserved market is prepared now for autonomy and Gravis is setting the tempo.”
Based in 2022 as a spinout from ETH Zurich, Gravis is tackling development’s greatest challenges – rising demand, falling output and an ageing workforce – by concentrating on productiveness, not processes.
Co-founder and CEO Ryan Luke Johns is an architect, roboticist and holder of the Guinness World File for the largest dry-stone wall constructed by a robotic. Co-founder CTO Dominic Jud is a robotic programs knowledgeable in autonomous management programs for complicated equipment. The duo met within the lab of co-founder and board member Marco Hutter, an knowledgeable in AI and serial entrepreneur in robotics.
Drawing on the group’s experience in AI and autonomy, their robotic excavator system goes past easy instructions. It reportedly adapts to actual floor circumstances via a learning-based management system that “feels the soil” utilizing information from hydraulics, LiDAR, cameras and GNSS.
This intelligence is paired with Gravis Slate – a pill interface designed to suit seamlessly into development workflows, that makes use of the robotic sensor suite to additionally increase guide operations – making a steady information loop that helps Gravis enhance efficiency and broaden its autonomous capabilities at velocity.
Function-built to deal with the unpredictability of web sites throughout a spread of duties, from trenching and earthworks to grading, materials dealing with and extra, Gravis appears to boost human groups moderately than changing them, boosting output 30%, lowering rework, and enhancing security.
One accomplice, Morgan Sindall Development described Gravis’ robotic excavator “as productive as a talented machine driver – and in some cases, enhanced group effectivity.”
Juan Nieto, Common Associate at Zacua Ventures shares: “Gravis embodies the sort of innovation our business has been ready for: autonomy that actually works within the discipline. Constructed on deep ETH Zurich analysis and pushed by a top-notch group, they’re already delivering productiveness beneficial properties clients can really feel. The keenness from our world investor base of main builders, operators, and gear teams is the clearest validation of how transformative Gravis’s expertise may be.”
Europe’s contractors punch nicely above their weight on a world scale: the revenue of the top five is roughly equal to that of the highest 28 within the US. Having to outline, function and scale underneath excessive cross-border requirements makes European development world by design. A lot so, nearly all of revenues (~60%) come from worldwide initiatives.
Those self same requirements now make Europe a proving floor for brand spanking new programs like autonomous earthmoving, and a launchpad for world deployment.
Gravis programs are already utilized by business giants in development, and for the autonomous dealing with of quarry supplies with Holcim and others — supporting website preparation, stockpile administration and the loading of vehicles and screeners.
Most lately, Gravis Robotics broke floor at a Taylor Woodrow infrastructure project at Manchester Airport – the UK’s first large-scale use of autonomous excavation on an lively development website.
Gravis can also be now partnering with the UK’s largest plant rent supplier Flannery to offer a mixed rental bundle for development clients, enabling a turnkey excavator resolution that’s already geared up with the Gravis Rack.
Following this enlargement, Gravis is now reside in seven nations throughout the UK, EU, US, LATAM and Asia.
Steffan Speer, Technical Director at Morgan Sindall Development provides: “Development faces main challenges, from attracting and retaining a talented workforce to enhancing productiveness. The business has usually been seen as gradual to undertake new applied sciences. Working with Gravis Robotics, we’re altering that.”
