A high-flying autonomous-construction startup quietly just became Ross Dress for Less’s upstairs neighbor at Fourth and Market. Bedrock Robotics is taking the top two floors at 799 Market Street, roughly 35,000 square feet, which puts a multibillion-dollar AI company directly above one of downtown’s busiest discount retailers. The lease is another signal that well-funded AI firms are still cutting checks for downtown San Francisco space even as vacancy stays stubbornly high.
According to The San Francisco Standard, the deal fills space in the eight-story building that was sold last year to Sansome Street Advisors. The outlet reports that Bedrock’s new offices total about 35,000 square feet and that a fifth floor had already been leased to cybersecurity firm Semgrep. The Standard also notes that representatives for both Bedrock and the landlord did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Big raise, fast expansion
Bedrock only stepped into the spotlight in 2024 and in February announced a $270 million Series B that valued the company at about $1.75 billion, according to a press release via PR Newswire. The round was co-led by CapitalG and the Valor Atreides AI Fund and is intended to help Bedrock scale from single-machine deployments toward coordinated fleets on large projects. That kind of capital goes a long way toward explaining how a year-old startup can lock in prominent downtown space.
Bedrock lists co-founder and CEO Boris Sofman, co-founder and CTO Kevin Peterson, and co-founder Ajay Gummalla among its leadership, according to Bedrock Robotics. The startup’s Bedrock Operator product retrofits heavy equipment with sensors and autonomy software, using cameras, LiDAR and large-scale machine-learning models to let excavators and other machines operate with far less direct human control, per Bedrock Robotics.
Why this matters for downtown real estate
Sansome Street Advisors paid roughly $44 million for 799 Market in 2025, a steep discount compared to the roughly $141 million the building sold for in 2016, and brokers say owners have been repositioning assets to court tech tenants, according to Bisnow. The building combines about 55,000 square feet of retail, home to Ross, with the remainder in office space, much of which sat vacant until the recent leasing push. For a landlord, landing a well-funded autonomy firm is exactly the kind of marquee tenant that can help re-market older office stock.
What’s next for 799 Market
The San Francisco Standard reports the top floors Bedrock is taking could be connected by an internal staircase that has not been constructed yet, and that Sansome Street Advisors financed the purchase with up to $36 million in debt from Athena Lending Company, according to property records. How quickly Bedrock will move in, and whether it will expand again, is not public; the company currently occupies a suite at 703 Market but appears poised for rapid growth. Observers say the deal will be watched as a potential bellwether for other AI and robotics firms weighing downtown footprints.
Whether Bedrock’s arrival signals a steady stream of similar leases or ends up as a one-off on Fourth and Market remains to be seen. For now, the deal joins a growing list of technology firms that have started taking headline downtown leases in recent quarters, and it offers a concrete example of how venture capital and corporate customers are shaping San Francisco’s slow-motion office rebound.
