{"id":110389,"title":"DeepReach: Launch a real-world data business today","tagline":"Multi-million-dollar contracts secured with frontier AI labs — and growing","body":"**TL;DR:** DeepReach is a global data network that equips local entrepreneurs with wearable devices to capture the real-world operation data for Physical AI training. By decentralizing collections across thousands of entrepreneurs who have access to local businesses, they provide high-diversity training data that cannot be accessed elsewhere. DeepReach already signed multiple-million-dollar contracts with frontier AI labs.\\\n\\\n**DeepReach is building a global network for real-world human data to train Physical AI.**\n\nWe enable local entrepreneurs to operate data-collection businesses using our wearable capture devices, while we provide the hardware, software, QA, and customers.\n\nThe result is a distributed network that produces the diverse human demonstrations Physical AI labs cannot obtain anywhere else. Every new data partner expands the diversity and value of the network.\n\nIn just three months, DeepReach has helped **150+ entrepreneurs** build data businesses employing **1,000+ local experts** across **7 countries**. Together, they’ve collected **500,000+ real-world operation clips**, captured **150,000+ professional skill demonstrations**, and secured **several million dollars in customer contracts** with frontier AI labs and robotics companies.\n\n▶ **Watch how it works:** \u003chttps://youtu.be/q5mLwju5Q8U?si=CT3FHbNJaIteNXZD\u003e\n\n---\n\n# **The Problem**\n\nFrontier AI is already learning from the physical world.\n\nThe challenge is no longer collecting data, it’s collecting **diverse** real-world data at scale.\n\nMost companies solve this by building collection labs or hiring workers directly. Both approaches scale headcount, but neither scales access. The hardest part is reaching millions of real workplaces across different industries, countries, and working conditions.\n\nWithout that diversity, AI struggles to generalize beyond a small number of controlled environments.\n\n---\n\n# **What We Built**\n\nInstead of building another data collection company, **we built a platform where entrepreneurs launch independent real-world data businesses.**\n\nDeepReach provides the wearable devices, software platform, quality infrastructure, customer demand, operational support, and payments. **Entrepreneurs build and grow the businesses.**\n\nThey recruit local experts, develop trusted relationships with local businesses, and continuously expand into new industries, communities, and real-world environments.\n\n**Every new business expands the platform’s reach into the physical world, creating access to places, people, and skills that centralized data collection simply can’t reach.**\n\nThe result isn’t a larger workforce, it’s **a growing ecosystem of independent data businesses** that continuously expands the world’s supply of diverse real-world data for Physical AI.\n\n---\n\n# **Where We Are**\n\nIn just three months:\n\n* **150+ entrepreneurs** have launched data businesses on DeepReach\n* Those businesses now employ **1,000+ local experts** across **7 countries**\n* **500,000+ real-world operation clips** collected\n* **150,000+ professional skill demonstrations** captured\n* **Several million dollars in signed customer contracts** with frontier AI labs and robotics companies\n* Scaling toward **10,000+ devices** across **20 countries**\n\n# **Where This Goes**\n\nOur model is simple: labs list the tasks and environments they need, our entrepreneurs pick up the orders and go record them, and every delivery makes the network more capable of fulfilling the next one. It also compounds into something bigger, what we call the **Human Skill Library**: a growing record of how people interact with the physical world.\n\nMost of this knowledge has never been documented. It lives in the hands of experienced workers, passed down through practice rather than words, and it often disappears when they retire.\n\nOur vision is to preserve and scale humanity's physical knowledge, so every AI system can learn from the collective experience of human work.\n\n# **About Us**\n\n\\\nTim built HireIO into a leading global workforce company with 15 millions in annual revenue, then founded [Talex.ai](http://Talex.ai), an AI-powered expert network, before starting DeepReach. Chris comes from a computer vision background. We discovered the problem firsthand while labeling data for robotics startups: the real bottleneck wasn’t annotation, it was capturing diverse real-world human skills at scale.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=110389\u0026key=user_uploads/1294315/9bb8c293-ab57-42aa-b756-58562e546b78)\n\n---\n\n# **How You Can Help**\n\nIf you’re building frontier AI systems and need more diverse real-world data, we’d love to talk.\n\nIf you’re an entrepreneur interested in building a real-world data business, applications are open here: [www.deepreach.ai/join](https://www.deepreach.ai/join)\n\nTim Li\\\nFounder \u0026amp; CEO, DeepReach AI\n\n[**tim.li@deepreach.ai**](mailto:tim.li@deepreach.ai)","slug":"SiT-deepreach-launch-a-real-world-data-business-today","created_at":"2026-08-13T18:33:15.556Z","updated_at":"2026-09-19T06:54:33.038Z","total_vote_count":469,"url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/SiT-deepreach-launch-a-real-world-data-business-today","share_image_url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/media/?type=post\u0026id=110389\u0026key=user_uploads/1294315/9bb8c293-ab57-42aa-b756-58562e546b78","company":{"id":32206,"name":"DeepReach Inc.","slug":"deepreach-inc","url":"http://www.deepreach.ai","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/165caaebecbd3f0b9470bb5817a0a1817520c935.png","batch":"Summer 2026","industry":"B2B","tags":["Artificial Intelligence","Hardware","Machine Learning","Robotics","Computer Vision"],"search_path":"https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/32206"}}