Bedrock Robotics Raises $600M at a $4.1B Valuation
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Bedrock Robotics has raised $600 million in a Series C round that values the autonomous vehicle startup at $4.1 billion. The company is two years old.
CapitalG and Emergence Capital co-led the round. New investors include 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.
The funding arrives two months after Bedrock moved its autonomous excavators out of testing and pilot programs and onto active construction sites. Bedrock has developed a self-driving kit that can be retrofitted onto construction and other worksite vehicles.
Where the machines work
Excavators fitted with the technology now operate commercially at three places: 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-based general contractor. It plans to use Bedrock-equipped machines on advanced manufacturing facilities, water and wastewater plants, data centers and healthcare facilities.
The new money will go toward more construction sites, plus the teams and infrastructure needed to support customers in the field.
"We have proven that fully autonomous excavators can perform real work of value alongside the crews and workflows already in place on job sites," CEO Boris Sofman said in a statement. "The next challenge is delivering that capability to more contractors as a dependable part of how projects get built."
A labor gap behind the bet
Bedrock focuses on excavators partly because operators are scarce. According to the company, mastering an excavator takes five years or more. Associated Builders and Contractors, a US construction trade association, estimates that more than 40% of construction workers will retire within five years.
Bedrock is betting that the industry will increasingly turn to autonomous driving technology to help close that labor gap.
Bedrock has raised nearly $1 billion since its founding in 2024. Sofman previously led Waymo's now-shuttered self-driving trucks program and co-founded Anki Robotics, maker of the Cozmo consumer robot, which shut down in 2019.
The other co-founders are Kevin Peterson, chief technology officer, and Ajay Gummalla, vice president of engineering and infrastructure, both Waymo veterans. Tom Eliaz, formerly of Segment and Twilio, is vice president of engineering and hardware.
Bedrock also announced two executive hires. Amy Jones Satrom, who worked at Amazon, Nuro and Uber, is vice president of operations. Lando Juarez, previously head of legal for Uber's autonomous mobility and delivery business, is general counsel.
Source: TechCrunch