Gritt
Series AAI that does the hardest work in the hardest places
AI-controlled robots that attach to off-the-shelf construction equipment to install solar panels up to 4x faster.
About
Gritt builds AI-controlled robots that handle the physically grueling parts of solar farm construction — unloading heavy glass panels, carrying them to their mounting frames, and placing them with sub-millimeter accuracy so a human crew can bolt them down. Rather than building custom robots, the system attaches to off-the-shelf hardware like rented skid steers and robotic arms from companies such as Kawasaki, letting an eight-person crew install 3,000-4,000 panels a day versus roughly 800 without it. Founded in San Francisco by CEO Puneet Puri and CTO Vishal Dugar, both Carnegie Mellon-trained roboticists, Gritt exited stealth in July 2026 with a $26M Series A led by Obvious Ventures, with Union Square Ventures and Active Impact Investments participating, on top of an earlier seed round from First Round Capital, Climactic, Congruent Ventures, and VSC Ventures — bringing total funding to about $32.4M. The company is already under contract with three of the top 10 US power construction firms to help install nearly 3 gigawatts of solar capacity over the next 18 months, and plans to extend its robotic system beyond solar into concrete and rebar work.
DailyDropout Take
Gritt is betting that the fastest way to scale robotics in construction is to not build robots at all — it bolts AI onto equipment crews already rent, which sidesteps the capital intensity that sinks most hardware startups. Backing from Union Square Ventures alongside climate-focused Obvious Ventures and Climactic signals investors see this as both an AI-infrastructure and energy-transition play, and 2.8GW of contracted work with top-10 power construction firms is real revenue, not a pilot. The risk is that quick-attach hardware is also easy to copy, and the company still has to prove its AI generalizes from panel-placement to the concrete and rebar work it says is next.
Discovery signal: Landed contracts with three of the top 10 US power construction firms for 2.8GW of solar installs before most of the public even knew the company existed, on the strength of a $26M Series A led by Obvious Ventures with Union Square Ventures participating.
What Makes Them Unique
Uses off-the-shelf, quick-attach hardware (rented skid steers, robotic arms) controlled by its own AI software instead of building proprietary robots, letting it scale to new job sites faster than custom-hardware competitors.
3,000-4,000 (vs. ~800 manual)
Panels Installed Per Day (per 8-person crew)
~2.8 GW over 18 months
Contracted Solar Capacity
~$32.4M
Total Raised
Target Markets
Founders
Puneet Puri
Co-Founder & CEO
Serial robotics founder from Carnegie Mellon and Stanford GSB; previously built the world's first inspection drones.
Vishal Dugar
Co-Founder & CTO
Robotics and AI expert from the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute with prior autonomous vehicle deployment experience.
Key People
Previously: CMU researcher specializing in robot manipulation and learning systems
Previously: MIT-trained engineer
Gritt is hiring!
Team size: Growing
Funding History
Lead:
Lead: Obvious Ventures
Investors
Firms
Gallery
Press & News
Gritt exits stealth with $32 million for robots to build solar plants — then, everything else
Gritt raises $32M for AI robots that bolt onto existing construction equipment to build solar farms faster
Gritt Launches with $32.4M to Build Physical AI for Accelerating the World's Infrastructure Buildout