Zurich-based Gravis Robotics, a robotic excavator platform innovating global construction, has today announced €19 million ($23 million) in new funding, along with a new wave of industry partnerships.
The funding was co-led by IQ Capital and Zacua Ventures, with Pear VC, Imad (CVC of Nesma & Partners), Sunna Ventures, Armada Investment and Holcim, and will be used to accelerate Gravis’ global rollout, grow the team, and expand Gravis’ growing network of partnerships with OEMs, contractors, and dealers.
Ryan Luke Johns, CEO and co-founder of Gravis Robotics, says: “The fastest path to autonomy is delivering productivity today. By giving operators real-time 3D intelligence and the ability to shift seamlessly between autonomy and augmented control, we cover more of the work, accelerate adoption, and create the data pipeline needed to learn new capabilities from the industry’s hardest jobs.”
In 2025, several European robotics and physical-AI startups secured new capital alongside Gravis Robotics’ round, including London’s Neuracore with €2.5 million to advance robot-learning infrastructure; Zürich’s Flexion with €43 million to develop control systems for humanoid robots; Swiss ETH-spin-out mimic with €13.8 million for its dexterous physical-AI platform; Germany’s Energy Robotics with €11.5 million for autonomous industrial inspection; and Romania’s .lumen with an EU-funded €11 million grant supporting urban-robotics deployment.
Together, these raise the disclosed 2025 total to roughly €82 million (excluding .lumen’s grant), illustrating heightened investment into physical-AI and field-ready robotics across Europe.
Within this context, Gravis Robotics stands out as one of the few companies applying autonomy specifically to construction-site heavy machinery, and its funding adds to a growing robotics cluster in Switzerland, where other major rounds (Flexion and mimic) were also recorded this year.
Archie Muirhead, partner at IQ Capital adds: “Gravis stands out, not just for its technical brilliance, but for how much it’s already achieved. The team’s thoughtful, grounded approach to autonomy – deploying real systems with real crews – has led to trusted partnerships with some of the largest global construction companies and OEMs and invaluable data from time-in-field. This huge and unserved market is ready now for autonomy and Gravis is setting the pace.”
Founded in 2022 as a spinout from ETH Zurich, Gravis is tackling construction’s biggest challenges – rising demand, falling output and an ageing workforce – by targeting productivity, not processes.
Co-founder and CEO Ryan Luke Johns is an architect, roboticist and holder of the Guinness World Record for the largest dry-stone wall built by a robot. Co-founder CTO Dominic Jud is a robotic systems expert in autonomous control systems for complex machinery. The duo met in the lab of co-founder and board member Marco Hutter, an expert in AI and serial entrepreneur in robotics.
Drawing on the team’s expertise in AI and autonomy, their robotic excavator system goes beyond simple commands. It reportedly adapts to real ground conditions through a learning-based control system that “feels the soil” using data from hydraulics, LiDAR, cameras and GNSS.
This intelligence is paired with Gravis Slate – a tablet interface designed to fit seamlessly into construction workflows, that uses the robotic sensor suite to also augment manual operations – creating a continuous data loop that helps Gravis improve performance and expand its autonomous capabilities at speed.
Purpose-built to handle the unpredictability of sites across a range of tasks, from trenching and earthworks to grading, material handling and more, Gravis looks to enhance human teams rather than replacing them, boosting output 30%, reducing rework, and improving safety.
One partner, Morgan Sindall Construction described Gravis’ robotic excavator “as productive as a skilled machine driver – and in some instances, enhanced team efficiency.”
Juan Nieto, General Partner at Zacua Ventures shares: “Gravis embodies the kind of innovation our industry has been waiting for: autonomy that truly works in the field. Built on deep ETH Zurich research and driven by a top-notch team, they’re already delivering productivity gains customers can feel. The enthusiasm from our global investor base of leading builders, operators, and equipment groups is the clearest validation of how transformative Gravis’s technology can be.”
Europe’s contractors punch well above their weight on a global scale: the revenue of the top five is roughly equal to that of the top 28 in the US. Having to define, operate and scale under high cross-border standards makes European construction global by design. So much so, the majority of revenues (~60%) come from international projects.
Those same standards now make Europe a proving ground for new systems like autonomous earthmoving, and a launchpad for global deployment.
Gravis systems are already used by industry giants in construction, and for the autonomous handling of quarry materials with Holcim and others — supporting site preparation, stockpile management and the loading of trucks and screeners.
Most recently, Gravis Robotics broke ground at a Taylor Woodrow infrastructure project at Manchester Airport – the UK’s first large-scale use of autonomous excavation on an active construction site.
Gravis is also now partnering with the UK’s largest plant hire provider Flannery to provide a combined rental package for construction customers, enabling a turnkey excavator solution that is already equipped with the Gravis Rack.
Following this expansion, Gravis is now live in seven countries across the UK, EU, US, LATAM and Asia.
Steffan Speer, Technical Director at Morgan Sindall Construction adds: “Construction faces major challenges, from attracting and retaining a skilled workforce to improving productivity. The industry has often been seen as slow to adopt new technologies. Working with Gravis Robotics, we’re changing that.”
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/11/swiss-construction-startup-gravis-robotics-raises-e19-million-for-its-robotic-excavator-platform/
