Bedrock Robotics Raises $270M for Driverless Excavators

Construction sites are about to get a major upgrade that could solve one of the industry's biggest problems.

Bedrock Robotics just raised $270 million to roll out fully driverless excavators later this year. The San Francisco company has been retrofitting standard construction equipment with autonomous technology, and now they're ready to remove human operators entirely from the cab.

The timing couldn't be better. The construction industry faces a massive labor shortage, needing an estimated 349,000 new workers in 2026 just to keep up with demand. Meanwhile, the world needs $106 trillion invested in infrastructure by 2040 to meet basic needs.

CEO Boris Sofman, who previously worked at Waymo, says his team is moving beyond testing. "We're working towards our first, fully operator-out, complete operatorless deployments later this year," he told reporters. "That's a really huge milestone."

The company emerged from stealth mode just months ago with $80 million in Series A funding. This new round, led by CapitalG and Valor Atreides AI Fund, brings total funding past $350 million. Even NVIDIA's venture capital arm joined the investment.

Bedrock plans to use the money to collect data, refine their AI models, and scale up production. They're also expanding geographically and growing their team with notable hires from Meta and Waymo.

The Ripple Effect goes far beyond just one company's success. As autonomous technology matures in construction, it opens doors for an entire ecosystem. Equipment manufacturers, contractors, and safety systems can all plug into these smart machines. Instead of replacing workers, the technology aims to amplify what existing teams can accomplish while making dangerous digging and loading tasks safer.

The company benefits from existing infrastructure too. Construction companies already buy and manage excavators, so Bedrock can work within that established system rather than building everything from scratch.

This follows a huge week for autonomous vehicles overall. Waymo, where many Bedrock founders previously worked, closed a $16 billion funding round just days ago. The technology that's been perfected on highways is now heading to construction sites, mines, and data center builds.

The first driverless excavator deployment will mark a turning point for autonomous capability in complex, articulated machines that do far more than just drive in straight lines.