AI Construction Startup Bedrock Raises $270M

A construction startup embracing artificial intelligence to help speed up the building process raised $270 million from a group of investors that included big names in the tech space.

San Francisco-based Bedrock Robotics recently raised the nine-figure sum in a fundraising round, the New York Times DealBook reported. The round valued the two-year-old company at $1.75 billion.

Some of the leaders of the fundraising round included the investment arm of Alphabet, the venture arm of Nvidia, the Valor Atreides A.I. Fund and 8VC, a previous investor in the company.

The startup’s goal is to automate the work of construction vehicles, including multi-ton excavators, in an attempt to speed up the building process. Bedrock aims to expand the use of its technology from excavation to demolition and beyond; its technology can be used on existing equipment, bypassing the need to develop expensive specialized excavators and the like from scratch.

The company is led by Boris Sofman, one of the figures who helped develop Waymo’s driverless cars. Other veterans of Waymo are also involved in Bedrock, helping to guide the company’s development of the sensors that are critical for the driverless cars.

While those vehicles seemingly take away fares for rideshare drivers, Bedrock is pitching itself as a complement to human labor, not a replacement. But the startup also sees a future of 24-hour construction with its technology, accelerating the usually 9-to-5 process, particularly when building factories and data centers.

Austin-based Champion Site Prep is among the contractors piloting Bedrock’s capabilities. The startup’s machines, however, still require human supervision; Champion Site’s chief executive officer described the technology as promising.

Approximately $16 billion was raised for proptech companies last year, according to Bisnow, a 68 percent increase from 2024 as investors returned to a sector that had slowed in recent years.

— Holden Walter-Warner