Gritt, a robotics start-up founded by two Carnegie Mellon-trained roboticists, has exited stealth mode with $34 million in total funding to build AI-controlled robotic systems that install solar panels, aiming to address a labour shortage slowing the global solar build-out. Rather than developing bespoke robots, the company adapts off-the-shelf hardware, such as rented skidders and robotic arms, guided by its own AI models, arguing that recent advances in AI now allow machines to cope with the unpredictable conditions of outdoor construction sites in ways they previously could not.

The Series A round of $26 million was led by Obvious Ventures, with Union Square Ventures and Active Impact Investment also participating, adding to an earlier seed round backed by First Round Capital, Climactic, Congruent Ventures and VSC Ventures. Gritt's systems currently unload and position glass solar panels with sub-millimetre accuracy, and the company claims an eight-person crew using its technology can install 3,000 to 4,000 panels a day compared with roughly 800 without it. It is already contracted to help install 2.8 gigawatts of solar capacity over the next 18 months for customers including three of the top ten US power construction firms, and hopes to have 48 systems deployed within six months, putting it in competition with rivals such as Luminous Robotics, Cosmic and China's Trinabot.