Robotics Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) 2025

As autonomy moves into complex safety-critical domains (e.g., aviation), failures become more costly and companies must devote significant in-house effort to validate their system before real-world deployment. Valgo accelerates autonomous systems development and certification by providing tooling to perform algorithmic safety validation at scale. We are building a platform to efficiently find rare and realistic failure events in simulation at a fraction of the compute cost required by existing approaches. Our tools are agnostic to models/simulators (i.e., black box) and can be applied across industries such as autonomous vehicles, aviation, robotics, space, defense, energy, and finance. Valgo was founded by Stanford PhDs who wrote the textbook and taught the course at Stanford on algorithmic safety validation. We also have significant industry experience working on an FAA-certified collision avoidance system at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, validating autonomous aircraft at Xwing, and collaborating with industry sponsors across transportation, aviation, and energy.

Robotics is going to be one of the largest industries the world has ever seen, but right now teams have to build so much in house just to get something to move. Hlabs is making a plug-and-play ecosystem of robotic parts with simple opensource software libraries to reduce the complexity in building a robot. Hlabs is founded by Paul, a second time YC founder who also participated in the W21 batch with Mystic. He ran Mystic as CEO for 6 years. From the first launch in October 2025 over 40 robotics companies have placed orders for the actuator control product. Hlabs is targeting Q1 '26 for the release of several additional plug-and-play products including an Nvidia Jetson powered main board, a low cost expandable camera system, and wireless communication/video module to make every robot wireless out of the box.

We provide defense companies with simulation infrastructure train and validate autonomous systems.

Tensr is building fully autonomous robotic factories that make scaling hardware as effortless as scaling on AWS. We’re a group of Berkeley graduate robotics researchers who previously won a full scale autonomous IndyCar competition at 160mph.

Forge Robotics is changing the way that metal parts are fabricated. We are enabling a future where our intelligent robotic system completes all steps needed to take raw metal stock and transform it into fully welded parts. Beginning with welding, we are building a robot-mounted vision system and AI feature detection that creates a real-time 3D map and tells the arm exactly where to go at every instant.

Efference builds the eyes and visual cortex for robots. Instead of treating depth as a hardware problem, we use software — inspired by how humans see — to generate rich and reliable 3D information. This lets us deliver higher performance and greater ease of use at a lower price than existing stereo cameras.

Tornyol builds micro-drones that kill mosquitoes. We use smartphone microphones, car park assist sensors and some clever DSP and control to transform 40-gram toy drones into mosquito killers. Because these drones are so cheap and fast, we will lower the cost of mosquito control by 100x which will enable the eradication of mosquitoes from cities, saving more than a million people each year from Malaria, West Nile, Dengue, etc.

We build brains for robots. We work with manufacturers like Unitree to make robots listen, speak, and act. You can program your robot out of the box by literally talking to it, no coding involved. Robots running Lightberry are emotionally intelligent, always on, and fully autonomous. Just like in Star Wars!

Building the data infrastructure for robots. Large-scale, real-world data is the missing ingredient for general-purpose embodied agents.

Cortex AI builds the world’s most diverse and large-scale real-world workplace robot & egocentric dataset — where the physical world becomes the next training and evaluation set for embodied AI. We power frontier labs developing robotics foundation models and general-purpose robots by providing the data they need: 1️⃣ Egocentric Data — real-workplace human video with hand/body pose, depth, and subtask labels. 2️⃣ Robot Data — trajectories collected from manipulators and humanoids in real industry settings. 3️⃣ Human-in-the-Loop Rollouts & Evals — real-world deployments with remote operators who recover robots when they fail, capturing data that feeds back into training and continuously improves models. Additionally, through the Cortex Marketplace, workplaces get paid to host data-collection and evaluation sessions, while labs access the in-the-wild data that truly matters. This draws on Lucas’s previous experience as co-founder of Carousell, a C2C marketplace that scaled to a $1B+ valuation.

We build humanoid robots that do your chores at iPhone prices. Just like the millions of cars generating data for self-driving, we need millions of humanoids generating real-world data for general-purpose robotics. Humanoid companies today can only manufacture hundreds a year because motors are expensive and slow to assemble. We use artificial muscles. Each muscle is just a tube wrapped in braided fibre, and the whole robot is powered by a single pump — which means we can mass-produce humanoids by the millions. Our design is built for that scale from day one and is cheap enough to enter billions of homes.

Relling is working on the “ImageNet for world models”: large-scale, high-quality multimodal datasets that help AI and robotics teams train systems to see, move, and interact with the real world. We combine synchronized video, depth, LiDAR, motion, and audio, we give researchers the building blocks for truly general-purpose AI.

Topological is developing physics-based foundation models for CAD optimization. We help hardware teams iterate at the same speed that software teams do. Our technology is accelerating the engineering workflow with AI and scales design and optimization to identify the ideal designs for complex problems given their physical constraints with enhanced speed and performance. Our first model, UToP-v1, is a SOTA topology optimization model that understands physics, geometry, and manufacturability. It can generate the most efficient design given a problem’s physical requirements. It has <5% compliance error and is 1930x faster than current methods. We're reimagining mechanical engineering and computational design with precision spatial AI.

Existing robots learn generic averages from massive datasets. Our robots learn from customer feedback. We solve the RL feedback loop for robotics, allowing our robots to learn from your specific standards via an automated reward pipeline that combines customer feedback with an intelligent judge model. This is the only way to capture the multi-trillion dollar “long tail” of unique, high-aggregate-value business tasks.

DeepAware builds an AI-driven automation system for GPU-intensive data centers. Our reinforcement-learning scheduler, real-time market integration, and unified dashboard slice energy waste by up to 30%. Coming soon: autonomous “robot-hand” inspections and maintenance to enable 24/7 operations with minimal staff. More info: https://deepawareai.com/ Jobs/Internship: https://www.deepawareai.com/careers

b-12 is an AI copilot that plans how to create and test new molecules for chemists. We're like a GPS for chemistry, helping pharma companies plan the recipes for new drugs, accelerating early-stage drug discovery from years to months. Andres built the first AI agent that can autonomously think and make molecules in a robotic lab, published in Nature Machine Intelligence (750+ citations), and won the best paper award at the NeurIPS AI for Science conference. Zlatko is a 3x National Chemistry Olympiad champion, competed at IChO level, and medicinal chemist who has worked at Roche and leading lab robotics companies. He has an extensive network of hundreds of chemists across Europe. We are publishing a groundbreaking paper in Nature demonstrating our AI's ability to optimally plan chemical recipes. We run paid pilots with big pharma companies showing that our platform planned a set of experiments that achieved full conversion in a single attempt, eliminating the usual 8-12 iteration cycle.

Boost Robotics is building autonomous mobile manipulation robots to remotely perform manual tasks in data centers. The surge in AI applications is pushing data centers to scale faster than they can manage, leading to suboptimal operations and staffing shortages amid rising power and compute demands. We save data centers millions in insurance premiums and SLA violations by increasing the frequency of inspection and maintenance while reducing the time it takes to triage and address failures.

HABIT will deploy on-demand robotic labor to you — and to restaurants, hotels, stores, and farms in your neighborhood. Our first vertical (the $45B car wash and auto detailing market) is high cost, labor intensive, and already offered in thousands of locations across America.

Teach robots new skills through natural language and run reliably in production in minutes. Mbodi combines generative AI and agent orchestration, turning everyday language and quick demos into precise, reliable robot actions for industrial automation.

We make automation accessible to businesses with an affordable, general-purpose robot platform designed to automate repetitive, stationary tasks.

We develop drones and land based autonomous robots that are designed to be controlled as groups and execute autonomous missions instead of requiring skilled operators to pilot or control. Once a critical mass of intelligent devices are deployed on the battlefield, it will fundamentally reshape the command structure of the modern military into something resembling an RTS game (Like Starcraft, Civilization, Command & Conquer, etc), reducing response times from minutes to milliseconds.

We're building an AI powered platform for engineers that are building new robots and machines. We allow users to invent and modify machine designs in a matter of minutes, not years. Ayna and Andy, the co-founders, met during their time at Harvard and started this in 2024 as their programs were wrapping up. We're commercializing 10+ years research done by our team at Harvard and MIT on this space. Our team wrote the very first papers on applying GenAI and optimization algorithms to compose robots from parts and applying computational design to fine tune machine designs. We're bringing in our deep knowledge of modifying equipment and integrating it into factories keenly understanding what makes hardware hard. We take in parts under consideration, constraints and tasks at hand and our algorithm formulates and fine tunes from 100s of possible design options. All in a few clicks, so engineers can push hardware to market faster and companies can benefit from the inventions being done by their R&D teams. We already have two paying customers in the OEM and system integrator spaces. We are venture backed and supported by a GBP 2.5MM grant by ARIA, the UK Government's invention agency.

We’re building AI-powered systems that automate manual work in scientific labs using robotics. Scientists simply type their experiment in plain English. Zeon translates it into code and runs it on robotic arms (no coding required). By controlling robots with natural language, we’re enabling automation for every lab, every scientist, and every experiment. Zeon is lab-aware. It detects equipment, adapts to protocols, and moves autonomously between instruments to execute full workflows. We’re already working with labs at Stanford and UCSF to accelerate discovery - from running overnight nanoparticle fluorescence measurements to safely disposing of hundreds of bacterial samples. Zeon reclaims time for what matters most: the science.

General Trajectory is building AI for the physical world. We are training vision-language-action (VLA) models across different embodiments to automate valuable labor starting with palletization, sorting, picking, and packing.

Forge Automation runs software enabled factories that deliver custom metal parts in four days or less. Instead of mechanical engineers having to wait two to three weeks for their low volume CNC parts, they can simply upload a CAD model on our platform and we will ship it out in four days or less. We aim to give mechanical engineers the "Amazon experience" for custom metal parts.

We make personal AI robots - general-purpose physical machines that anyone can program with code, language and demonstrations. We believe building open platforms like the first PCs this is the only way to bring the robotics future that we all want, where everyone can participate in the robotics revolution.

Autumn Labs delivers a developer-friendly platform for monitoring and managing modern manufacturing lines. Seamlessly integrating with robotic stations—automated test stations, robotic assembly cells, and industrial arms—it ensures full traceability, live data monitoring, and secure data transport. We prioritize streamlining factory operations, boosting production quality, and preventing supply chain disruptions, all while offering an effortless onboarding experience for engineers and manufacturers.

Sensei helps robotics companies scale and outsource their training data collection. Our hardware platform enables the collection of human-demonstration data at a tenth of the cost and twice the speed of current teleop approaches. Our software platform acts like Scale AI for robotics data: a large network of paid human operators use our low-cost collection platform to fulfill data-generation requests.

Ultra builds practical, general-purpose robots that are deploying—and producing ROI—today. Unlike traditional industrial automation that’s rigid and complex, our robots are zero integration (able to be installed in hours, not weeks) and are highly flexible, capable of quickly learning new tasks and delivering immediate value to customers. Founded by a team of three-time entrepreneurs with a decade of collaboration, Ultra moves fast. We already have robots in the field generating revenue and data, with plans to rapidly scale deployments this year.

Ember builds hardware and system observability tools for robots and IoT devices. Founded by former Tesla Autopilot engineers, we help hardware teams catch failures early, reduce downtime, and iterate with confidence from prototype to scale.

Miru makes it easy for robotics teams to manage, version, and deploy robot configurations. Developers use our well-documented APIs and UI components to automate configuration updates for both engineers and operators. In the long term, we're building software infrastructure to accelerate the automation of the physical world.

Bucket Robotics is making defect detection faster, easier, and more deployable — starting with the 250M lbs of plastic wasted annually in U.S. manufacturing. Our platform turns CAD files into defect detectors. We generate synthetic, photorealistic training data to help factories catch flaws before they ship. No manual labeling, no real defects required. Our models deploy to edge hardware and integrate easily into existing automation stacks. We come from the self-driving world (Argo AI, Uber ATG, Stack AV), where we built reliable perception in high-noise, real-world environments. We're applying that experience to manufacturing: robust sensing, user-friendly interfaces, and fast iteration cycles. Manufacturers hesitate to adopt new sensing due to data concerns, integration risk, and poor UX. We’ve handled petabytes of regulated autonomy data — and built systems that earn trust. Legacy vendors like Keyence and FLIR offer hardware-centric tools with bloated pricing and outdated software. We’re building the opposite: flexible, modern tools that engineers want to use. Manufacturing is in the middle of a $700B automation wave across North America. Bucket Robotics is building the quality control infrastructure to match.

Saphira is the easiest way for hardware products to get safety certified and reach market faster, such as industrial robots and heavy machinery.

Spaceium builds fully automated space stations to refuel and repair spacecraft. We have secured $86.1 million in binding commercial contracts and have an additional $230 million in the pipeline. Additionally, we have 1 billion dollars in letters of intent. We have successfully tested our hardware, which will launch to space next year. Our fully automated space stations will efficiently store and transfer both cryogenic (extremely cold) and non-cryogenic fuels with zero loss during storage and transfer. And they can transfer fuel seamlessly to any spacecraft design using our proprietary modular robotic arm. Our customers include launch vehicles, orbital transfer vehicles, moon landers, and spacecraft that benefit from increased payload capacity and extended travel capabilities. Our long-term vision is to build service hubs along the space superhighway to connect Earth to Moon and Mars and help humanity to become multi multi-planetary species

We're building humanoid robots to do most of what you find boring or tedious. We have an open-source design which we are releasing to the public, which is capable of walking, talking and manipulating objects.

Pivot Robotics makes AI software for robotic arms that helps manufacturers automate their most labor intensive tasks. We are starting out with the dangerous task of metal grinding and are currently deploying our software on 10+ robots in a cast-iron foundry.

Yondu is creating the robotic workforce of the future starting with logistics automation. We're deploying humanoid robots in the first flexible, drop-in picking automation solution designed for 3PLs.

Tuesday makes delightful robots that tidy your home for you

Maihem's generative AI platform lets you intuitively direct robots to complete varied tasks in changing environments without manual reprogramming.

phospho provides sdks, tutorials and hardware kits for real-world robotics in Python. The goal is to lower the barrier for entry to robotics so that everyone can start building intelligent robots.

It takes 5 years for pharma to develop long lasting drug injections for chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes. Persist uses AI-driven automation to reduce formulation development time down to 2 years, a ~50% reduction.

BotBuilt is creating flexible robotic systems to solve the housing crisis. Our cutting-edge software and cost-efficient hardware allow us to improve the world by providing beautiful construction, safer job sites, and sustainable building techniques. The $600 billion residential construction industry is facing a massive labor shortage. Our robotic systems leverage the latest in rapid prototyping, artificial intelligence, and computer vision. By taking on some of the hardest technical challenges on earth, BotBuilt is ready to help solve one of society’s biggest problems.

Seaflight Technologies has developed a new form of Aerodynamic Flow Control for electrified aircraft that increases range and payload by 30%. That's the same performance improvement you'd get from hopping in a DeLorean to 2035 and coming back with batteries from the future. But it's available today - our tech has been derisked by testing supported by the National Science Foundation, the US Air Force, and the Australian Government. Our first product is a simple fixed-wing large cargo drone that is efficient enough to remove the "green penalty" currently associated with electric aviation. That's a step change from today's conventional platforms. First generation electric aircraft are heavy, expensive, complicated, and limited in terms of range and payload. In the entire history of aviation, that's never been a winning formula. When everyone already has access to the same batteries, materials, and motors, what really makes the difference? The answer is revolutionary aerodynamics, but in a form factor that suits today's operations and manufacturing. Beyond our own drone product line, we have partners across Aerospace helping incorporate our tech into their products. In the future, if you want to have the most efficient and cost-effective flying machine of any description, you'll need Seaflight's Flow Control inside.

Hedgehog builds robotic mushroom farms. Our robots eliminate labor and our AI optimizes grow conditions to increase yield. We’ll soon grow mushrooms and fungi for <1/3rd the cost of leading growers. Fungi may address our food system’s biggest problems: they transform agricultural waste into protein-rich foods with near-zero environmental impact. Hedgehog’s technology is unleashing fungi as our next major food source.

Polymath is building a general autonomy stack for cautious vehicles. Our software allows any industrial vehicle - whether it's a tractor in a field or a bulldozer in a mine, drive itself. We bundle together AI, ML, Controls, ROS, Safety and best-in-class deployment practices to enable our customers to tell automated vehicles to do via a REST API. We're on more robots than we have engineers, are seeing our revenue (and robotic fleet) grow rapidly, and are looking for folks who want to help automate the world.

We bring Tesla autonomous manufacturing to every automaker and other producers. At Tesla, we were the core autonomous factory team and we’re now building the smart cameras and robotic guidance tools that provided the main advantages at Tesla

Charge Robotics is building robots that automate the most labor-intensive parts of solar construction. Solar has rapidly become the cheapest form of power generation in many regions. Demand has skyrocketed, and now the primary barrier to getting it installed is labor logistics and bandwidth. Our robots remove the labor bottleneck, allowing construction companies to meet the rising demand for solar, and enabling the world to switch to renewables faster.

Flux Auto is building autonomous mobility technology to fully automate the movement and operation of vehicles in controlled spaces. Using Flux's solutions customers can reduce their dependency on human drivers, while also increasing productivity and reducing operating costs. Flux is currently deploying in warehouses, farms and mines.

1.2B lbs of fish are caught everyday yet as little as 1 in 3 fish make it to a plate — most of this waste arises because fish are suffocated on boats or electrocuted on farms. Suffocation and inaccurate electrocution create stress and so acidify meat, damage quality and significantly reduce shelf-life. Artisanal techniques in high-end sushi multiply shelf-life and taste but, because of the variation in fish, are difficult to perform in a mechanical fashion. Shinkei automates traditional techniques using robotics to provide long-lasting and delicious fish for farmers and harvesters at scale.