Gravis Robotics, an ETH Zurich spinout, equates autonomous resources to archaeologists. The tie-up will extend the procurement of Masayoshi Son’s robots from the factory floor to the construction site.
SoftBank is weighing a deal for Gravis Robotics, a Swiss startup outfitting excavators and diggers with sensors and software to drive themselves, according to Bloomberg.
The report did not describe the nature of any transaction, and the size, structure, and valuation were not disclosed. The talks seem to be in the early stages, and there is no guarantee that they will lead anywhere.
What they’re doing points to where SoftBank is looking next. Masayoshi Son’s team has spent the past year rapidly putting together a robotics portfolio, from R800mn reportedly revolving around Agile robots to smaller bets on the kind of autonomous kits that connect to existing machines.
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Gravis Robotics emerged from ETH Zurich in 2022, from the Swiss university’s Robotic Systems Lab. Rather than building a robot from scratch, it replaces conventional heavy equipment, attaches a kit that includes LiDAR, cameras, GNSS positioning, and hydraulic sensors so that a standard excavator can cut, level the ground, and control the stock itself.
The company claims that this approach can increase site productivity by around 30%.
The kit has a name, or two. For hardware, Gravis calls the Rack; the operator controls it using a tablet interface called a Slate that switches between autonomous and mode modes.
The point is that the machine can be taught to feel the ground through its hydraulics rather than following a set plan.
It is run by CEO Ryan Luke Johns, an architect turned roboticist, and chief technology officer Dominic Jud and co-founder Marco Hutter, professor of ETH robotics.
Johns and Jud hold the Guinness World Record together for the largest standing stone wall built by a robot, which tells you something about the company’s attitude.
In November 2025 the startup raised $23mn in a round brought together by IQ Capital and Zacua Ventures, with Pear VC, Sunna Ventures, and cement group Holcim among the backers.
With its own account, Gravis now has machines running on active sites in all seven countries. Its client list, according to the company’s own announcements, includes contractor Taylor Woodrow, which used the technology at Manchester Airport, plant hire company Flannery, and Holcim, which operates quarries. Those claims come from Gravis and have not been independently researched.
For SoftBank, the construct is a logical extension of a larger thesis. The group agreed last October to buy ABB’s robotics division for $5.4bn, and the four-bank consortium just completed a $1.75bn loan consolidation after that purchase this week.
It is also selling its remaining stake in Boston Dynamics to Hyundai, collecting bets on old robots as it installs new ones.
The Gravis talks, if real, would join a series of similar moves. SoftBank led the Agile Robots 2021 funding, a round that made the Munich, Germany company the first robotics unicorn, and is now said to be raising $800 million there.
Earlier in 2025 it invested $500mn in Skild AI, a startup building a general-purpose robot control model. The common thread is the machines that do the physical work, and the software that’s good enough to run them.
Son’s pitch is that artificial intelligence has grown into software and the next frontier is giving it to the body. SoftBank is reportedly preparing a US-based AI and robotics car, tentatively called Roze, which it hopes will float at a valuation of $100bn.
The broader market went with him, with global robotics investment more than doubling to $27.6bn by 2025, a record year for firms like NEURA Robotics.
A self-driving digger is a less photogenic proposition than a walking humanoid, but it might come in handy soon. The construction industry faces an ongoing shortage of skilled machine operators, and earthmoving is repetitive, dangerous, and expensive for workers.
Whether SoftBank ends up buying Gravis, or just kicks the tires, the path is clear enough. A company that once bet on a chatty humanoid called Pepper is now looking for machines that shake up the real world.
