This landscape maps the frontier where software intelligence fuses with physical machinery — startups building robots that learn, adapt, and operate autonomously.
Inspired by KFund’s piece and expanded using our proprietary Specter platform, the list spans robotics firms redefining industries from agriculture and logistics to defense and construction.
These aren’t just mechanical arms or moving platforms — they are embodied agents, trained by data, powered by AI, and primed to reshape the real world.
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Integrators
Arondite (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 11)
Imagine a world where AI and autonomous systems tackle some of humanity’s toughest challenges—Arondite is making that a reality. Founded by Rob Underhill and Will Blyth, this London-based startup is diving into defense, critical industries, and humanitarian solutions with cutting-edge technology. Still in its Pre-seed / Seed phase, Arondite has already secured $12m from heavy hitters like Concept Ventures, Index Ventures, and Creator Fund, with its latest Seed round closing on April 2, 2025. They’re growing fast, grabbing headlines, and attracting top talent and investors alike. If you’re curious about the future of AI-driven innovation, Arondite’s one to watch.
Dyna Robotics (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 772)
Ever wished repetitive tasks could just handle themselves? Dyna Robotics is on it. Based in Redwood City, this Early Stage startup uses smart robotic arms powered by advanced foundation models to take the monotony out of work. Founded by a dream team—veterans of a $350m grocery deep tech exit and robotics experts from DeepMind and Nvidia—they’ve raised $23.5m from investors like Umami Capital, ZhenFund, and First Round Capital, with their latest Seed round on March 25, 2025. With a growing team and buzz in the news, Dyna Robotics is bringing affordable automation to businesses everywhere.
End-to-End
Glacier (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 270)
Recycling just got a whole lot smarter thanks to Glacier. Founded by Areeb Malik and Rebecca Hu, this San Francisco startup is building AI-powered robots that sort over 30 materials with pinpoint accuracy—all at a price that won’t break the bank. In its Early Stage, Glacier’s hauled in $20.5m from a star-studded investor list including Jeff Immelt, New Enterprise Associates, and Climate Pledge Fund, with a Series A round wrapped up on April 28, 2025. They’re turning heads with recent funding, media buzz, and a mission to revolutionize how we handle waste.
Robust.AI (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 362)
Robots and humans working side by side? That’s the vision at Robust.AI. Founded by a powerhouse crew—Anthony Jules, Gary Marcus, Henrik Christensen, Mohamed Amer, and robotics legend Rodney Brooks—this San Carlos startup is crafting AI-driven robots for warehouses and factories. With $42.5m raised from investors like Playground Global and Future Ventures (last Series A on April 20, 2023), they’re in Early Stage and booming. Think surging headcounts, spiking app downloads, and plenty of news chatter—Robust.AI is all about making robotics human-friendly.
Yondu (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 757)
Retail and warehouse chaos, meet your match. Yondu, a San Francisco-based Pre-seed / Seed startup founded by Michael Chen and Tahmid Jamal, is automating operations with AI-powered robotics. Backed by Y Combinator and SBXi, they’ve raised $500k (latest Pre Seed round: April 3, 2024) and are already seeing explosive team growth. Yondu’s goal? Boost worker efficiency and make customers happier with slick, autonomous solutions. Small funding, big potential.
Multiply Labs (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 1321)
Precision medicine gets a robotic twist with Multiply Labs. Founded by Alice Melocchi, Fred Parietti, Joe Wilson, and Tiffany Kuo, this San Francisco Early Stage company is using advanced robotics to churn out gene-modified cell therapies at scale. They’ve secured $22.7m from a long list of backers like Founders Fund, Lux Capital, and Y Combinator, with their last Series A on April 14, 2021. Even without recent funding, their top-tier investors, growing team, and news coverage keep them in the spotlight.
Data Generation
BOW (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 56040)
BOW is building a universal SDK that lets any software developer write, port and orchestrate robotics applications across different hardware makes without specialist robotics expertise. Founded by Daniel Camilleri and Richard Waterstone. In Pre-seed / Seed, backed by Northern Gritstone, Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II, and Finance Yorkshire, with a total of $4.99m and last raised on January 27, 2025 – Seed. Recent funding news and board appointments highlight the company’s momentum. Based in Sheffield, United Kingdom.
Rerun (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 620)
Rerun is an open-source toolkit for log handling and visualization in spatial and embodied AI. To commercialize its multimodal data stack for “Physical AI”—ingesting, storing and visualizing time-series sensor and 3D data from robots, drones and autonomous vehicles. Founded by Emil Ernerfeldt, Moritz Schiebold and Nikolaus West. In Early Stage, backed by Point Nine, Sunflower Capital, Costanoa Ventures, Seedcamp and others, with a total of $20.37m and last raised on March 20, 2025 – Seed. Top-tier investors, rapid headcount surge and strong community adoption highlight growth. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.
AMP (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 318119)
AMP modernizes recycling with AI-powered smart robots. Founded by James Bailey and Matanya Horowitz. In Growth Stage, backed by Wellington Management, Range Ventures, Congruent Ventures, Closed Loop Partners, Baidu Ventures and others, with a total of $266m and last raised on December 5, 2024 – Series D. Top-tier investor support and recent news momentum underscore its leadership. Based in Louisville, Colorado, USA.
Fleet Orchestration
Robot Depot (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 1705436)
Robot Depot was created in Silicon Valley in early 2024 by a team of AI and robotics experts. Their universal SDK lets developers deploy conversational AI “digital assistants” on any robot hardware, with customized language models and integrations. Pilot deployments at hospitality venues (e.g. Bevri in SF) showcase table-service and concierge bots answering inquiries and handling orders. Founders Mark Anthony Robles (CEO) and Arnold Placencia-Flores (CMO) previously scaled AI startups; CTO Koundinya Vinnakota is a University of Maryland robotics alumnus. With no outside funding to date, they’re growing headcount rapidly and targeting enterprise partners in retail and logistics.
Peer Robotics (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 11835)
Peer Robotics spun out of a Yale-MIT collaboration in 2019 to commercialize “Peer 3000,” a fleet of haptic-sensory AMRs that learn by human demonstration. Co-founders Rishabh Agarwal (CEO) and Tanya Raghuvanshi (COO) raised $2.3m in a seed round led by Kalaari Capital, with follow-on from Axilor Ventures and Connecticut Innovations. Their robots, now deployed in dozens of small-to-mid-sized factories across North America, use computer vision and force feedback to handle tote and pallet movements, slashing manual labor. Website traffic and inbound pilot requests have doubled in the last six months.
Gideon (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 323128)
Gideon Brothers (now “Gideon”) emerged from the University of Zagreb in 2015, pioneering camera-based SLAM AMRs for horizontal and vertical material handling. Founders Milan Racic et al. raised $31m in Series A (Koch Disruptive Technologies lead) and a $4.6m corporate round in September 2024 to expand Trey forklift and vision-guided pallet trucks. Their deployments in European automotive plants and U.S. e-commerce DCs deliver 30% throughput gains. Annual recurring revenue doubled in 2024, and they’re hiring across R&D and field engineering.
GreyOrange (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 342410)
GreyOrange, founded at BITS Pilani in 2011 by Akash Gupta and Samay Kohli, delivers “GreyMatter,” a software orchestration layer controlling a mixed fleet of robots for picking, sorting and put-wall applications. Their $135m Series D (led by Anthelion, with Mithril and BlackRock) closed December 20, 2023. Customers like DHL, Falabella and Amgen report 40% faster order cycle-times. Recent launches include deep-learning–powered palletization and RFID-integrated inventory-counting bots. Their R&D centers in India and the U.S. are scaling AI model training for dynamic routing.
Foundational Models
Proception.ai (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 1603)
Proception AI develops advanced AI-powered dexterous robotic handling systems and is now shipping prototypes to academic and industrial labs. Founded by Jay Li and Jianxiang (Jack) Xu. In Pre-seed / Seed, backed by Y Combinator with a total of $500k and last raised on 2025/03/12 – Pre Seed. Top Tier Investors, Headcount Surge, Recent Funding. Based in Palo Alto, California, United States.
Neo Cybernetica (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 12,102)
Neo Cybernetica develops advanced cybernetics technology that fuses neuroscience, AI, and robotics. Founded by Dmytro Zahanych and Jeremy Achin, they have built a team of neuroscientists, AI researchers, and robotics engineers to deliver human-machine collaboration for industrial and medical applications. In Pre-seed / Seed, backed by New Enterprise Associates, B5 Capital, Cortical Ventures, West Coast Equity Partners and others with $30m and last raised on 2022/02/09 – Seed. Top Tier Investors, No Recent Funding. Based in Salem, New Hampshire, United States.
Oxipital AI (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 317,735)
Oxipital AI offers visual AI solutions for efficient, scalable machine‐vision–guided inspection and pick-and-place robotics. Founded by Carmichael Roberts, its edge-deployed neural networks handle complex product inspection in food, CPG and agri-food, serving Fortune 500 customers like Tyson and Yamaha. In Growth Stage, backed by ABB, Fanuc, Marel, Honeywell, Johnsonville, Tekfen and others with $86m and last raised on 2022/11/17 – Series C. Top Tier Investors, No Recent Funding, Recent News. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Mistral AI (🌟 Specter - Global Rank: 51,868)
Mistral AI provides open and portable generative AI models for developers and enterprises. Founded by Arthur Mensch, Charles Gorintin and Guillaume Lamarre. In Late Stage, backed by General Catalyst, Lightspeed Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, Samsung Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and 37 others raised €600m (~$644m) in June 2024 at a €5.8b valuation, and partnered with Microsoft to deploy on Azure. Their latest “Le Chat” app hit top-ranked free iOS launch in France, underscoring rapid user adoption. Top Tier Investors, Headcount Surge, Strong Headcount Growth. Based in Paris, Île-de-France, France.
Hardware Providers
Simplified Robotics (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 2,072,551)
Simplified Robotics offers plug-and-play collaborative robots for small-to-medium industrial users. Founded in 2023 by Mark Lazarides (formerly at Bristol Robotics Laboratory), the company is bootstrapped and has grown headcount to 5 employees. Its “OctoCobot” series integrates dual-arm cobots with guided-motion software to automate pick-and-place tasks without safety fences. Based in Bristol, United Kingdom.
RoBoa (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 518)
RoBoa AG builds snake-like robots for zero-entry inspection and rescue in confined spaces. Founded February 2025 by ETH Zürich engineers Alexander Kübler and Betim Djambazi, RoBoa closed a CHF 150 K pre-seed from Venture Kick on April 1, 2025 – the first tranche of its planned seed series. Its “RoBoa” crawler navigates pipes, sewers and disaster-zone rubble using tip-growing locomotion and onboard vision, slashing downtime and human‐safety risk. Based in Zürich, Switzerland.
NEURA Robotics (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 37,439)
NEURA Robotics pioneers cognitive and humanoid robotics for manufacturing, logistics and healthcare. Founded in 2019 by David Reger, the Metzingen-based startup raised €120m in a Series B on January 15, 2025, led by Lingotto Investment Management (with BlueCrest, Volvo Cars Tech Fund and others) to expand its Neuraverse platform and humanoid cobot lineup. In Growth Stage, with a team of 300+ and €1b order book, NEURA claims the world’s first commercially-viable cognitive cobot. Based in Metzingen, Germany.
Locus Robotics (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 320,313)
Locus Robotics is the market leader in warehouse AMRs that work side-by-side with human pickers. Founded in 2014 by Bruce Welty and Craig Bishop, it has raised over $300m (including $117m Series F in 2022) and surpassed 5 billion robotic picks in April 2025, a milestone reached just 24 weeks after 4 billion picks. In Late Stage, based in Wilmington, Massachusetts, USA.
Security
Frontline Robotics (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 52,404)
Frontline develops robotic systems for defense, replacing humans in heavy-lift and reconnaissance roles. Founded by Oksana Pavenko and Viktor Abramov. In Pre-seed / Seed, backed by Ukraine Invest, Sectoral Development Fund, and Prometheus Ventures, with a total of $1.2m and last raised on 2024/11/15 – Seed. Recent grants and headcount growth highlight momentum. Based in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Alias Robotics (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 68,288)
Alias Robotics provides security and compliance solutions for industrial robots and cobots. Founded by Jordi Tous, Arnau Ramisa, and David Cirera. In Pre-seed / Seed, backed by Eurecat, CDTI, ACCIÓ, and European Commission’s Horizon 2020, with a total of $2.5m and last raised on 2023/05/10 – Grant. Highlighted for vulnerability assessments across multiple OEM platforms. Based in Barcelona, Spain.
Cobalt Robotics (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 327,356)
Cobalt offers AI-powered security monitoring solutions with human-in-the-loop oversight, combining autonomous patrol robots and real-time video analytics. Founded by Nick McGuire and Brett Adcock. In Growth Stage, backed by Accel, Y Combinator, Valo, and Eclipse Ventures, with a total of $60m and last raised on 2023/08/20 – Series B. Strong Headcount Growth, Top Tier Investors. Based in San Mateo, California, USA.
Nightingale Security (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 691,380)
Nightingale Security offers fully autonomous drone solutions for perimeter monitoring and rapid response, integrating thermal imaging and AI analytics. Founded by Mike Krupka and Stephanie McKinnon. In Late Stage, backed by Nightingale Ventures, Prologis Ventures, and Disruptor Capital, with a total of $12.5m and last raised on 2022/12/01 – Series A. No Recent Funding. Based in San Francisco, California, USA.
Training Platforms
Phospho (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 10,046)
Phospho offers text analytics for LLM applications, providing fine-grained user intent classification and semantic enrichment. Founded in 2023 by Camille Germond and Adrien Toubiana. In Pre-seed / Seed, backed by Serena Capital and Firstminute Capital with a total of $3.2m and last raised on 2024/11/05 – Seed. Scaling its “Phospho API” that analyzes prompt performance and user feedback, now serving ~200 developers worldwide. Highlighted for 5× model-accuracy lift in production. Based in Paris, France.
Composabl (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 27,611)
Composabl provides a visual no-code platform to compose, train and deploy multimodal AI pipelines. Founded by Lina Wang and Raj Patel in 2022. In Pre-seed / Seed, backed by Antler and Techstars with a total of $1.1m and last raised on 2023/09/20 – Seed. Enables analysts to chain image, video, text and audio models via drag-and-drop. Based in San Francisco, USA.
Viam (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 317,054)
Viam is an engineering platform for deploying real-world robotics and IoT applications with Python SDKs and managed cloud services. Founded in 2021 by Piotr Mińkowski and Thomas Tsai. In Growth Stage, backed by NEA, Bessemer Venture Partners, Two Sigma, and Expa with a total of $45m and last raised on 2024/04/18 – Series A. Powers startups and enterprises to spin up robot fleets in hours. Based in New York, USA.
Strategic Outlook
The robotics and AI landscape is maturing from isolated pilots to integrated platforms and mission-critical applications:
- Foundational Models like Mistral AI and Proception.ai are democratizing advanced perception and reasoning, enabling robotic systems to handle dexterous manipulation and contextual decision-making across industries.
- Hardware Providers such as GreyOrange and Cobalt Robotics are shifting from proof-of-concepts to large-scale deployments in logistics, security, and manufacturing, proving that plug-and-play cobots and AMRs can deliver both efficiency gains and compelling ROI.
- Security is moving front and center: startups like Alias Robotics and Frontline Robotics illustrate that hardening both software and physical assets against cyber-physical threats is now a critical prerequisite for enterprise and defense adoption.
- Training Platforms (Phospho, Composabl, Viam) show that no-code/low-code tooling and managed cloud services are lowering the barrier to entry, allowing organizations to stand up and scale robot fleets and AI pipelines in days rather than months.
Key Takeaways
- End-to-end stacks—from open foundation models to domain-specific hardware—are converging, reducing integration friction and accelerating time to value.
- Security and compliance frameworks baked into both hardware and software will become mandatory for regulated industries, not optional add-ons.
- Democratized training platforms will unlock long-tail use cases in healthcare, agriculture, and energy where specialized robotics expertise is scarce.
- Investors are increasingly backing startups that can productize rapidly, align with regulatory standards, and forge strategic partnerships with system integrators and enterprise clients.
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