Industrial
TerraFirma this week raised $115 million in Series A funding to expand its engineering, manufacturing, operations, and construction teams and continue developing its semi-autonomous heavy equipment. The startup, founded by former SpaceX engineers, aims to transform construction productivity through robotics and software.
“Construction is the foundation everything else is built on, and it’s been going backward for 50 years,” said Noah Schochet, co-founder and CEO of TerraFirma. “America built the transcontinental railroad, the interstate highway system, and the Hoover Dam. There s no reason we can’t build at that scale again, and there’s no first-principles reason construction can’t become 10x faster, cheaper, and safer. TerraFirma exists to help America build again and then take that capacity into the cosmos.”
“Construction is the foundation everything else is built on, and it’s been going backward for 50 years,” said Noah Schochet, co-founder and CEO of TerraFirma. “America built the transcontinental railroad, the interstate highway system, and the Hoover Dam. There s no reason we can’t build at that scale again, and there’s no first-principles reason construction can’t become 10x faster, cheaper, and safer.”
Kleiner Perkins led the round, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Glade Brook Capital Partners, BANNER VC, Saga Ventures, Trust Ventures, Definition, PEAK6, Magnetar Capital, and Ravelin Capital. Angel investors include founders, executives, and engineers from companies including SpaceX, Anduril, Base Power, Shinkei, and Hadrian. Former SpaceX engineers Schochet and Noah McGuinness founded TerraFirma in 2024. It is a tech-enabled, vertically integrated construction company initially focused on robotic earthworks and site operations. The Austin, Texas-based company builds and uses its own robotics and software in the field.
TerraFirma noted that since 1965, labor productivity in U.S. construction has fallen at an average rate of 0.6% per year, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce and Goldman Sachs, while productivity across the broader economy has grown. The company’s semi-autonomous excavator aims to address this decline by making construction faster, cheaper, and safer.
Source: The Robot Report