Noam Rotem
Co-Founder and Chief Excavation Officer
“In my family, entrepreneurship isn’t just acceptable, it’s natural. I come from a family of engineers; my father was a startup founder in the 1980s, and my older brother is also in startup business. Whenever I face a dilemma, I turn to my family for advice first. My wife balances us out by running a social nonprofit.
Most of my time is dedicated to Dig Robotics, and I spend the little spare time left with my family, our pets, playing basketball, and taking early morning walks through the beautiful grain fields around our kibbutz (a rural village).
Dig Robotics is, in many ways, an evolution of my previous venture, Syracuse, which focused on autonomous cranes and was acquired two years ago. Afterward, I asked: ‘What’s next?’ The answer was clear: Start another company.
Along with my long-time partner, Oded Medina, we analyzed Syracuse’s strengths and weaknesses, broke down our expertise—automation, optimization, cranes— and came up with more than 20 potential startups. Some of these lasted a day, or even a month. With Dig Robotics, the pieces came together and it felt right. Two months later, Ken Gray, the renowned excavation guru, joined us, and things took off.
At Dig, we decided to take an Operator Assistance approach rather than a fully autonomous solution. While people love the idea of autonomy, the industry isn’t ready (yet) to actually adopt it, due to costs, insurance implications, and development challenges.
As a manager, I’m very hands-on, because Dig is my ‘baby’, which I built from the ground up (excuse the pun). However, over time I’ve learned that sometimes, it’s better to let go and get things going.
Going forward, my vision for Dig Robotics is to grow into a global technology leader, with cutting-edge solutions and a team of talented people who are excited to come to work each day, feel inspired, valued, and part of something big.”
