The EU-Startups Podcast | Interview with Ryan Luke Johns, Co-founder & CEO of Gravis Robotics

In this special episode of the EU-Startups Podcast, we kick off a five-part interview series recorded during Leonard Launch Day in Paris, in partnership with Leonard, the innovation and foresight platform of the VINCI Group that supports startups and internal projects shaping the future of construction, infrastructure, energy, and mobility!

During the event, we sat down with five companies from its 2026 cohort for in-depth conversations. This first interview in the series features Ryan Luke Johns, CEO of Gravis Robotics, a Swiss ConTech company founded in 2022, enabling autonomy in heavy machinery. We explore why autonomy is becoming increasingly important in construction, the challenges of deploying robotics in complex environments, why retrofitting existing equipment is key to real-world adoption, and much more!

Key Takeaways:

Why autonomy in heavy machinery is becoming a necessity, not a luxury
The safety benefits of rerelocating humans from high-risk machine operations
Retrofitting existing equipment versus building autonomous machines from scratch
The realities of deploying robotics on live construction sites
How human operators’ roles are evolving alongside autonomous systems

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