Gritt exits stealth with $26M to put AI robots on solar construction sites

What's the deal? GrittDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a robotics startup founded by Carnegie Mellon-trained roboticists Puneet Puri and Vishal Dugar, exited stealth on Tuesday with a $26 million Series A. Obvious Ventures led the round, with Union Square Ventures and Active Impact InvestmentsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → participating. That brings total funding to $34 million, following a seed round backed by First Round Capital, ClimacticDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Congruent Ventures, and VSC Ventures.

What's the endgame? Gritt is building AI-controlled systems that run on off-the-shelf hardware — rented skidders and robotic arms from firms like KawasakiDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — rather than robots of its own. Its systems currently unload large glass solar panels and position them on metal frames with sub-millimetre accuracy for workers to fasten. The goal, in Puri's words, is to “help civilization build infrastructure faster.”

Why now? The global solar build-out is running into a shortage of installation workers. Puri says an eight-person crew installs 800 panels a day; the same crew using Gritt's systems installs 3,000 to 4,000.

By the numbers: Gritt has two systems in the field and is contracted to install 2.8 gigawatts of solar over the next 18 months. Its customers include three of the top 10 US power construction firms, and it aims to run 48 systems within six months. The $26 million Series A sits in the 95th percentile for rounds of its stage in the sector.

What's next? Gritt wants its systems to fasten panels, drill posts, and build the racks the panels sit on. Longer term, it plans to move into other labour-intensive construction tasks, such as tying rebar before concrete is poured.

What could go wrong? Gritt competes against Luminous Robotics, Cosmic, and China's Trinabot, all building their own hardware. As Obvious Ventures partner Andrew Beebe put it, Gritt's founders are the kind who “know what it means to get into dirty, dull, and dangerous jobs and scale them like mad” — but the bet on rented, off-the-shelf hardware over custom robots is what will shape whether Gritt grows faster and leaner than its rivals as demand climbs.

Read more: TechCrunch