Bedrock Robotics: Deploying autonomous equipment for the Built World

Earlier this fall, we flew to Austin, TX to watch an excavator dig and saw Bedrock Robotics in action. Two CAT 352s, which are among the most difficult machines on a construction job site to operate, were moving earth on their own. No one in the cab; just an excavator loading a human-driven dump truck governed by a safety system built by the same people who did this at Waymo. The excavator even honked at the driver when it was done, yet nobody at Bedrock had programmed that behavior. It emerged from Bedrock’s Operator model trained on human operator hours doing the same job.

Bedrock is expanding the deployment of this technology to scale autonomous construction equipment across commercial sites in America. Bessemer is proud to join this $600 million Series C to partner with a team that has already made autonomous vehicles work in the real world before.

Following our investment in Waymo earlier this year, we began roadmapping off-road autonomy as it was clear that AI had reached the point where true autonomy was viable for off-road vehicles, particularly in construction. Bedrock, in particular, started with the hardest machine—the excavator—and officially achieved its “operator out” milestone this summer.

The team behind the machine is why we believe they got here. CEO Boris Sofman led trucking at Waymo, and CTO Kevin Peterson founded Marble, the autonomous sidewalk delivery company acquired by Caterpillar before he later joined Waymo himself. COO Laurent Hautefeuille came from Uber Freight and brings the commercial hustle that technically excellent autonomy teams often lack. More than half of Bedrock’s engineering team hails from Waymo, and the company is advised by former CEO of Waymo, John Krafcik.

Bessemer’s why now for Bedrock

Construction is a $2.2 trillion annual market in the U.S., with more than $200 billion a year spent on manually operating equipment. That work is becoming structurally difficult to staff. 88% of construction firms report difficulties filling open positions, and roughly half of the current trades workforce is expected to retire within 5-7 years. With that shortage comes the largest private infrastructure buildout in modern American history. Data center projects are consuming capacity faster than the industry can supply, and construction restraints are part of the reason why. For Bedrock’s customers, autonomy isn’t primarily a cost story. It’s the difference between bidding a project and passing on it.

Rather than waiting on OEM factory integration, Bedrock retrofits existing machines with a kit that installs within a couple of hours, makes no permanent modifications, and is fully reversible. This kind of agnostic solution is key since jobsites run mixed fleets, and no single OEM serves all of them. Bedrock’s stack also powers a visibility layer that gives contractors real-time data on cycle times, productivity, and safety events across equipment that isn’t yet autonomous.

Building in the physical world takes real time and capital, but we’re excited to partner with a rare team equipped to convert the demand and its technical lead into an enduring company. Congrats to Boris, Kevin, Tom, Ajay, Laurent, and the entire Bedrock team on this groundbreaking milestone!