Robotics AI Startup Jobs

Defense technology company building autonomous systems and AI-powered defense capabilities to transform military and border security operations.

Defense AI company building autonomous aircraft and AI pilot technology for military applications.

K2 Space designs and manufactures large, high-power "mega-class" satellites with enhanced payload capacity and propulsion for government and commercial customers. The company is vertically integrated, building its satellites at a factory in Torrance, CA, with additional teams in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Washington DC.

Formlabs designs and manufactures professional-grade 3D printing systems, including stereolithography (SLA) and selective laser sintering (SLS) printers, materials, and software. Based in Somerville, MA, the company serves engineering, manufacturing, dental, and design customers worldwide.

Vast is a US-based commercial space company building human-rated artificial-gravity orbital space stations, starting with its single-module Haven-1 station targeted as the world's first commercial space station. Founded by Jed McCaleb and headquartered in Long Beach, California ('Space Beach'), the company designs and manufactures its spacecraft hardware in-house. It is racing to provide a commercial successor to the International Space Station.

Atoms is Travis Kalanick's physical-AI and industrial robotics holding company, rebranded in March 2026 from City Storage Systems. It operates business units across food (CloudKitchens, Otter, Lab37, Picnic), autonomous mining (built on acquired robotics firm Pronto), and transport, building a shared robotics 'wheelbase' for specialized industrial machines rather than humanoids. The company runs operations in 110+ cities and raised $1.7B led by a16z in July 2026, with Ben Horowitz joining the board.

Autonomous drone manufacturer building AI-powered drones for defense, public safety, and enterprise inspection.

Helsing is a European defense AI company building autonomy software and hardware for democratic nations. It develops real-time battlefield decision software, AI-enabled drones, and sensor fusion systems for military applications across NATO allies. Founded in 2021, it has grown to become one of Europe's most valuable defense tech startups with an $18B valuation.

Defense technology company building unmanned defense systems and distributed manufacturing.

A defense technology company specializing in counter-drone radar and other defense solutions.

Apex is a defense-grade satellite bus manufacturer producing configurable, productized spacecraft platforms (Aries, Nova, Comet) for LEO, MEO, and GEO orbits. The Los Angeles-based company serves commercial and sovereign government customers at scale with peak annual capacity exceeding 200 units per year. Apex launched Project Shadow, the first commercially-led on-orbit space-based interceptor demonstration.

Hadrian builds AI-enabled autonomous factories that manufacture precision components and systems for aerospace, defense, shipbuilding, and other industrial customers, combining software, robotics, machining, inspection, and factory operations.

Tenstorrent designs AI accelerator chips and RISC-V processors, building both hardware and software for high-performance machine learning workloads. Founded by CEO Jim Keller, it has offices in Austin, Santa Clara, and Toronto.

Divergent Technologies develops the Divergent Adaptive Production System (DAPS), an end-to-end digital manufacturing platform that uses machine learning to design, 3D-print, and automate assembly of complex vehicle structures. Based in Torrance, CA, it serves automotive OEMs (Aston Martin, Bugatti, McLaren) and is expanding into aerospace and defense (Lockheed Martin, General Atomics, Raytheon).

Nuro develops autonomous driving technology and licenses its Nuro Driver platform to automotive and mobility partners for commercial deployment.

Neros designs and manufactures high-performance attritable FPV drones and ground control systems for the U.S. military and allied forces, building a vertically integrated, China-free supply chain. Founded in 2023 by former professional drone racers, it has scaled rapidly to supply the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, and Ukraine.

Figure develops general-purpose humanoid robots and embodied AI systems for industrial and logistics environments, combining robotics hardware with AI control systems.

1X Technologies builds general-purpose humanoid robots designed for home and industrial use. Their flagship products include EVE for industrial facilities and NEO for the home. Backed by OpenAI.

Antares is developing mass-producible, inherently safe nuclear microreactors for terrestrial, underwater, and space-based applications, producing between 100 kilowatts and 1 megawatt of electricity. The company has a 145,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Torrance, California and is on track to achieve first reactor criticality by mid-2026. Founded by alumni of SpaceX, MIT, and Los Alamos National Lab, Antares is backed by over $130 million in venture capital and government funding.

Waabi develops AI-first autonomous trucking software and simulation systems to accelerate validation and deployment of self-driving transport technology.

Northwood Space designs and manufactures electronically steered phased-array ground stations that enable scalable, rapidly deployable satellite communication and tracking infrastructure. The company serves commercial and government customers including a $50M U.S. Space Force contract to modernize the Satellite Control Network.

Stoke Space Technologies develops the fully and rapidly reusable Nova rocket designed to operate with aircraft-like frequency. Founded by former Blue Origin and SpaceX employees, raised over $1.3B.

Genesis AI is building a universal foundation model for robotics, training on large-scale synthetic physical-world data for research and production systems.

Bedrock Robotics brings autonomy to construction equipment, deploying AI systems that operate heavy machinery on real job sites to accelerate infrastructure work.

Mecka AI is a Toronto- and New York-based startup that collects and analyzes human motion data, captured via smartphones and body sensors, to train humanoid and other robots. It positions itself as a data and deployment layer for physical AI, akin to what Scale AI, Mercor, and Surge provide for LLMs, and also deploys robots commercially for enterprise customers.

Amca (Advanced Manufacturing Company of America) acquires and modernizes domestic factories to produce certified aerospace and defense components, combining engineering, qualification testing, and manufacturing on its RAPID AI platform. Based in El Segundo, California, it supplies parts for the F-35, F-16, M1 Abrams, and commercial aircraft to primes like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Honeywell.

Skild AI, based in Pittsburgh, builds a general-purpose, omni-bodied robotics foundation model (the "Skild Brain") that can control different robots across many tasks. It is deployed in security and facility inspection, delivery, warehouses, manufacturing and construction, and it reports about $30M in revenue in 2025. Investors include SoftBank, Nvidia, Sequoia, Lightspeed, Coatue and Bezos Expeditions.

TAR builds self-contained, off-grid renewable power and battery systems for AI data centers, deploying at gigawatt scale without relying on the electrical grid. Founded in 2026 by Pat Becker and Leonhard Soenke, the company is headquartered in Austin with engineering in San Francisco and manufacturing in West Texas.

AeroVect builds the AeroVect Driver, an AI autonomous-driving system that lets airport ground support equipment such as baggage and cargo tractors operate without a human driver. Headquartered in South San Francisco with offices in Atlanta, New York, Toronto and Frankfurt, it serves major airlines and ground handling providers.

Velaura AI (formerly Auradine) designs ultra-low-power silicon, systems, and IP for AI accelerators, data centers, and physical AI applications like robotics and autonomous systems. Its Titan Core platform targets 2-4x better performance per watt for AI compute infrastructure.

Overland AI develops autonomous ground vehicle software and systems for off-road and contested environments, with defense-focused robotics deployments.

ALSO. is an electric mobility company spun out of Rivian that is building small, vertically integrated EVs for dense urban movement and autonomous delivery. Its vehicles combine new propulsion, software, and hardware to replace short car trips with lighter electric transport.

Epirus is a defense technology company that builds software-defined high-power microwave and directed-energy systems for counter-UAS, counter-swarm, and electronic-warfare missions. Its flagship Leonidas platform disables drones and electronic threats using solid-state, software-updatable hardware, and the U.S. Army has selected it for its Indirect Fire Protection Capability program.

Standard Bots builds AI-native industrial robot arms and the software stack that runs them, targeting manufacturers who want automation without dedicated robotics engineers. Its RO1 cobot combines a no-code/AI control interface with US-based manufacturing in Glen Cove, NY. The company hit a $1B valuation with a $200M Series C in June 2026.

Mytra develops automated robotic storage and warehouse automation solutions using bots, software, and modular cells. The platform features AI-optimized dynamic pathways, slotless inventory management, and a three-dimensional grid system for storing and moving materials in warehouses. Founded by ex-Tesla and Rivian leaders.

Robotics AI company building foundation models for general-purpose robots to handle physical world interactions with advanced manipulation capabilities

Periodic Labs is an AI research company focused on building autonomous AI scientists and software systems that accelerate scientific discovery.

RobCo is a Munich-founded industrial robotics startup providing modular, plug-and-play robotic hardware kits and AI-powered automation software for small and mid-sized manufacturers. Its RobCo Studio software enables no-code programming of robots for tasks like machine tending, palletizing, welding, and dispensing. Backed by Lightspeed and Sequoia, it is scaling US operations with offices in San Francisco and Austin.

TerraFirma is an Austin-based, vertically integrated construction robotics company founded in 2024 by former SpaceX engineers Noah Schochet (CEO) and Noah McGuinness (CTO). It retrofits heavy equipment — excavators, dozers, loaders, rollers, skid steers — for AI-assisted remote and semi-autonomous operation, paired with AI construction planning software. Rather than only selling robots to contractors, TerraFirma takes on earthwork, demolition, site prep, and infrastructure projects itself for data centers, roads, substations, and energy sites.

Defense technology company building AI-powered software for national security missions.

BRINC Drones builds public-safety drone systems for 911 rapid response, indoor tactical operations, firefighting, and search and rescue, including the Lemur 2, Responder, and Guardian aircraft plus its LiveOps command-and-control software. Its platform integrates with Motorola Solutions' police radios, 911/CAD, and CommandCentral systems and is used by 900+ public-safety agencies and more than 20% of U.S. SWAT teams. Founded by CEO Blake Resnick and headquartered in Seattle, the company is scaling U.S. manufacturing with a new Queen Anne factory and HQ.

Machina Labs develops AI-powered robotic manufacturing systems for sheet metal forming and industrial production, reducing the need for traditional tooling.

Astromech is an AI-and-biology startup recruiting across genomics, evolutionary modeling, synthetic data, and alignment research to decode and simulate complex living systems.

Monumental develops AI-powered autonomous robots for on-site masonry construction work, performing bricklaying with millimeter precision using computer vision to make construction software-defined and autonomous.

Airbound builds the world's most efficient delivery drones, developing advanced autonomous aircraft using blended-wing-body designs for ultra-low-cost logistics. Founded by 20-year-old Naman Pushp, the Bengaluru-based company aims to achieve one-cent drone deliveries at scale, serving medical, defense, and industrial applications.

Mythic builds power-efficient analog compute technology for AI inference, targeting edge-to-enterprise deployments where energy efficiency and throughput are critical.

Orchard builds AI-powered robotic systems that automate orchard harvesting with computer vision and advanced robotics.

Sunday is a robotics company building Memo, a household humanoid robot designed to assist families with everyday chores like dishes, laundry, and tidying. Founded by Stanford-trained roboticists Tony Zhao and Cheng Chi, the company uses data from thousands of real homes to train its robots. Sunday reached a $1.15 billion valuation with its Series B round and is preparing to deploy its first robots through a Founding Family Beta program.

Watney builds dual-armed robots that perform physical maintenance work inside hyperscale AI data centers, such as cable swaps and server restarts. Founded in San Francisco in 2023 by Ryan Gannon and Sean Cheong, it has been testing robots with Meta since 2025 and operates the largest fleet of dexterous robots running 24/7/365 across the United States.

Dyna Robotics develops high-performance general-purpose robots powered by proprietary embodied AI foundation models that achieve 99+ percent success rates in commercial environments with self-improving capabilities.

NODA AI is an AI-native defense company building autonomy orchestration software that enables command and control of mixed autonomous and manned assets across multi-domain military operations. Its platform serves as a vendor-agnostic reasoning layer coordinating heterogeneous autonomous systems for the Department of Defense and allied defense customers.

A robotics company providing robotic solutions for wind turbine blade maintenance and inspection, using specialized robots for cleaning, coating, and repair.

Generalist AI is building embodied foundation models for general-purpose robots, starting with a focus on dexterous manipulation, leveraging research from OpenAI, Boston Dynamics, and Google DeepMind to create end-to-end deep neural networks that map sensor data to real-time robotic actions.

Builds fully autonomous, cabless electric freight haulers (Class 8 trucks) that use vision-based AI to move freight across warehouses, ports, and railyards at lower cost.

Builds containerized, forward-deployable drone manufacturing units that can 3D-print unmanned aerial systems in under 24 hours at or near the front line.

Robotics company using wall-climbing robots and AI for industrial inspections and predictive maintenance.

Menlo Research is a Physical AI research lab that began with Jan, an open-source, privacy-first AI assistant that has surpassed 6 million downloads, and is now building robots and models to solve real-world physical tasks. The ~25-person team is distributed across Singapore, Vietnam, and the US. It is community-built with no disclosed institutional funding rounds.

Neurophos is an Austin-based semiconductor startup developing photonic AI inference chips, spun out of metamaterials research at Duke University. Its Optical Processing Unit (OPU) compresses rack-scale AI compute into a single package using CMOS-compatible photonic tensor cores, targeting the compute-bound prefill stage of inference.

Skyryse develops SkyOS, a universal operating system for flight, and is bringing software-defined avionics and autonomy to existing and new aircraft platforms.

Atomic Industries is an AI-powered tool-and-die manufacturer that applies machine learning to modernize precision manufacturing.

Matic is the world's most advanced floor cleaner, a fully autonomous robot vacuum that continuously scans the perimeter of your home with high-resolution cameras, LiDAR, radar, and thermal sensors for comprehensive cleaning.

Taara develops free-space optical communication technology that delivers high-speed connectivity through narrow beams of light instead of fiber or radio spectrum. Spun out of X, Alphabet's Moonshot Factory, the company builds optical wireless systems and photonics technology for expanding broadband infrastructure.

RoboForce builds AI-enabled mobile manipulation robots ('Robo-Labor') that perform dangerous, repetitive industrial work in solar installation, mining, data centers, manufacturing, and logistics. Founded in 2023 by veterans of CMU, Amazon Robotics, Waymo, Cruise, and Tesla, it is developing its RF-04 robot and TITAN platform for large-scale deployment.

General Intuition is a public-benefit frontier research lab building foundation models for environments that require deep spatial and temporal reasoning. It starts with games as a rich training ground and aims to transfer those capabilities into the real world.

Bright Machines provides software-defined manufacturing and industrial automation systems that combine robotics, AI, and computer vision for electronics production.

Niantic Spatial builds geospatial AI foundation models that help machines understand and operate in the physical world. Its products cover 3D capture, reconstruction into digital twins, vision-based localization for GPS-denied environments, and a semantic AI interface for querying 3D spaces. It serves enterprise customers in robotics, defense, and utilities, and was spun out of Niantic when Scopely acquired Niantic's gaming business.

Defense technology company providing software platform for military logistics and field operations optimization.

Catalyx Space builds orbital logistics infrastructure, combining spacecraft, software, and operations to move experiments and manufactured payloads to orbit and back. The company focuses on reusable capsules and faster, more predictable in-space deployment and downmass services.

Medra develops autonomous AI-powered robotic scientists that run and refine laboratory experiments end-to-end, interfacing with standard lab tools to accelerate drug discovery and biological research.

Charge Robotics builds autonomous robots that construct solar farms through the Sunrise system, a portable robotic construction unit that automates the assembly and installation of solar-tracking hardware, making renewable energy deployment faster and more cost-effective.

Frontier AI research lab building next-generation AI models for semiconductor design. Develops recursive self-improvement cycle where AI designs silicon that powers the next generation of AI. Founded by AlphaChip creators from Google DeepMind.

Fortastra builds intelligent, maneuverable spacecraft designed to protect government and commercial satellites through remote sensing, autonomous capabilities, and defensive rendezvous and proximity operations. The company targets satellite security, space infrastructure resilience, and operational risk in contested orbital environments. It is headquartered in Torrance, California.

Stack AV develops autonomous driving technology for trucks, combining AI, robotics, and machine learning to build a self-driving ecosystem tailored to the trucking industry. The company spun out of Hyundai's self-driving unit and is based in Pittsburgh, PA.

VulcanForms is an advanced digital manufacturing company using metal additive manufacturing, precision machining, and automation to build industrial-scale production capabilities.

Westmag (Western Magnetics Company) designs and manufactures drone motors and robot actuators at Factory 01 in South San Francisco, aiming to build a vertically-integrated, NDAA-compliant American supplier for the physical AI hardware stack. The company exited stealth in June 2026 after closing an $11M seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Founders Fund, Lux Capital, NFDG, and Menlo Ventures.

Sunrise Robotics builds intelligent robotic cells for manufacturing, combining AI software, computer vision, and industrial automation to take repetitive work off factory floors.

Aurelius Systems builds Archimedes, an autonomous directed-energy laser platform that detects, tracks, and neutralizes drones without human operators. The San Francisco-based defense tech startup serves military and critical infrastructure protection use cases, offering a low-cost-per-shot alternative to missile-based counter-UAS systems.

Terraforming robotics company that uses autonomous subsurface injection robots to lift and stabilize flood-prone terrain by injecting wood slurry deep underground, addressing urban flooding and land subsidence caused by sea level rise, extreme weather, and groundwater withdrawal with minimal surface disturbance.

Flexion Robotics builds the brain for humanoid robots with an AI-driven reinforcement learning and sim-to-real autonomy platform founded by former Nvidia researchers powering humanoids across morphologies and tasks.

Lightship is the first American all-electric recreational vehicle company, designing and producing aerodynamic, battery-powered travel trailers. Founded by Tesla alumni, the company builds zero-emission travel trailers including the Atmos and Panos models, with deliveries starting in 2026. Lightship is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado.

Chef Robotics builds AI-enabled robotic systems for food factories, prepared-meal production, and food assembly operations. Its robots automate repetitive plating, portioning, and packaging tasks in commercial food production, offered via a Robotics-as-a-Service model. The company has deployed systems that have produced tens of millions of meals.

Gravis Robotics is a Zurich-based, ETH Zurich spinout that builds autonomous AI systems for heavy construction machinery. Its Gravis Rack retrofits excavators and other equipment from manufacturers like Caterpillar, John Deere, and Volvo to enable AI-assisted or fully autonomous operation on jobsites.

Synthetic data generation platform for autonomous vehicle training and simulation.

Alloy is a data platform for robotics that helps companies process, organize, and search through the massive volumes of sensor, camera, and telemetry data their robots generate. The Sydney-based startup enables natural language search across robot data and automated issue detection, reducing data processing time by up to 90%.

Gather AI builds autonomous drone systems for warehouse inventory monitoring. Its AI-powered drones and software platform enable logistics operators to scan facilities, count stock, and achieve inventory visibility without manual cycle counts. The company was founded in 2017 by Carnegie Mellon alumni and serves modern warehouses and distribution centers.

Helm.ai develops AI software for autonomous driving (AD/ADAS) and robotics automation, using an unsupervised 'Deep Teaching' approach that trains neural networks without human annotation or simulation. It partners with major automotive OEMs, and in October 2025 received an additional strategic investment from Honda to accelerate next-generation AD/ADAS development.

Phaidra builds AI agents and control systems that optimize power, cooling, and operations for data centers and other industrial facilities. Founded in 2019 by ex-Google DeepMind engineers, it partners with NVIDIA and major data center operators to improve energy efficiency.

Until Labs develops reversible cryopreservation technology to pause biological time, starting with organ-scale preservation to extend the viability of donor organs for transplantation. The company is building medical infrastructure toward whole-body medical hibernation technology.

Viam is a software platform that makes the physical world programmable, enabling engineers to build, deploy, and manage robotics and IoT applications. Founded by MongoDB co-founder Eliot Horowitz, Viam powers AI and automation solutions across robotics, food and beverage, climate tech, marine, and industrial manufacturing.

Apex.AI builds safety-certified, developer-friendly software for autonomous and software-defined vehicles, including its Apex.Grace (formerly Apex.OS) middleware derived from the open-source ROS 2 framework. Its products power autonomous mobility and robotic systems for automotive, trucking, and agricultural-machinery OEMs. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in Germany, Sweden, Japan, and South Korea.

Elorian is a Palo Alto AI research and product lab founded in 2025 by former Google DeepMind and Apple researchers, including CEO Andrew Dai, building multimodal models for visual reasoning about images, video, spatial relationships, and the physical world. Its first model, Glimpse, launched as a research preview in October 2026, targeting applications in robotics, science, and design.

Open-source multimodal data logging and visualization SDK for robotics and computer vision teams, enabling engineers to log, replay, and inspect spatial and temporal data.

Develops advanced AI, robotic, and autonomous drone systems specifically designed for wildfire suppression, using AI to locate and knock down fires before they spread.

The Bot Company is a San Francisco robotics startup founded in 2024 by former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt, ex-Tesla AI lead Paril Jain, and ex-Cruise engineer Luke Holoubek. It is building an affordable, non-humanoid household robot that uses AI to pick up, organize, and put away items so people spend less time on chores. The company has raised over $550M pre-product, most recently at a valuation above $4B.

AMI Labs is a frontier AI research lab building world-model-based intelligence systems with planning, memory, and safety controls for real-world applications.

Dexterity develops physical AI robotic systems for industrial automation, enabling warehouses and logistics operations to automate complex manipulation tasks.

Pantograph is a San Francisco-based public benefit corporation and applied research lab building generally intelligent, low-cost robots. It trains general models on internet-scale video and video games, then deploys them onto its own fleet of affordable, durable robots for large-scale real-world interaction data collection. The company owns its full stack — hardware, firmware, training infrastructure, and learning algorithms — and released its first video-pretrained model in July 2026.

Electronic warfare company building AI-driven software and hardware—incl. SIGINT payloads and autonomous drones—for spectrum dominance.

Odin Dynamics is a defense technology company building autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and advanced robotics for undersea warfare, including precision strike, ISR, and mine-warfare missions. Its Dolphin-M and Dolphin-S UUV platforms emphasize high endurance, long range, and modular payloads, with in-house battery/powertrain engineering as a core differentiator. Founded by a former Tesla powertrain engineer and a 23-year Navy EOD officer, the company is headquartered in Los Angeles with a Washington, DC presence.

Corvus Robotics builds fully autonomous warehouse inventory drones that scan, count, and track pallets without facility modifications or external infrastructure. Its Level 4 autonomous drones navigate aisles and read barcodes to automate inventory management for warehouses and manufacturing facilities. The company sells this inventory-and-inspection capability as a service to enterprise logistics operators.

Airloom Energy is reinventing wind power with a novel, low-profile track-based turbine system that dramatically reduces the cost and complexity of harnessing wind energy. Backed by Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital, the Laramie, Wyoming-based startup is developing a pilot facility to demonstrate its modular wind technology. Airloom's design uses lightweight airfoils on an oval track, offering a simpler and more affordable alternative to traditional wind turbines.

Building the world's most biomimetic musculoskeletal androids featuring over 200 degrees of freedom and proprietary artificial muscles. The Protoclone V1 can be manufactured for under $20,000.

Builds and operates automated drill rigs to accelerate mineral discovery, integrating autonomous control systems and real-time data streams into diamond core drilling for mineral exploration.

Orion Sleep develops an AI-powered smart mattress cover that combines dual-zone hydro-based temperature regulation with built-in biometric sensors tracking sleep stages, heart rate, movement, and HRV. Its Orion Intelligence learns each sleeper's thermal profile and adaptively optimizes deep and REM sleep. The product fits over any existing mattress and is positioned as a more affordable alternative to Eight Sleep.

Grid Aero builds autonomous cargo aircraft for long-range, high-payload logistics solutions serving both military and commercial applications with rapid development cycles.

Provides AI-powered mapping tools like Farsight to help defense teams generate 3D terrain and plan missions.

Sudo Robotics is building general-purpose robots powered by a manipulation-centric foundation model, with its flagship #sudo R1 system integrating self-developed hardware and software. The system trains manipulation policies in simulation alone, using reactive observation-conditioned control at 15-25 Hz to achieve high reliability in object picking and grasping. The company targets physical-AI applications across manufacturing, logistics, agriculture, and eldercare.

Sunflower Labs builds autonomous drone-based security systems that combine robotics, sensors, and software to monitor residential, commercial, and industrial properties.

Voliro develops autonomous aerial robotics for industrial inspections, combining a drone platform, tiltable payload system, and software for high-value asset inspection workflows.

Alterego is building a near-telepathic neural interface that translates silent speech and biosignals into computing input for more intuitive human-computer interaction.

Physical AI company building Newton foundation model that fuses real-time multimodal sensor data with natural language to interpret and act on physical phenomena

Cellares is an integrated development and manufacturing organization (IDMO) for cell therapies, using automation and industrial-scale manufacturing systems to expand access to life-saving treatments.

Infinite Machine designs and manufactures premium electric non-car vehicles for urban transportation, combining distinctive hardware, connected software, and vehicle services around products such as P1 and Olto.

Finnish deeptech company building autonomous, hydrogen-powered airships for persistent aerial surveillance and intelligence, serving both defense and civilian customers. Backed by the NATO Innovation Fund, it completed two phases of NATO's DIANA accelerator program.

Pipedream Labs is building an autonomous underground delivery network using robotic carts that travel through buried tubes at speeds exceeding 60 mph, making delivery feel like teleportation. The company aims to eliminate emissions, reduce traffic congestion, and dramatically lower last-mile delivery costs.

Aether AI is a frontier AI research company building causal world models — systems that reason through causal mechanisms rather than statistical correlations, so machines can reason under interventions and act reliably in complex real-world environments. Founded by UC San Diego professor and causal-discovery researcher Biwei Huang, its initial commercial focus is Physical AI and robotics. The company raised a $20M seed round in June 2026 led by MPCi.

Aitan builds edge-AI robotic weapon systems for allied militaries and national-security organizations, offering a "Robotic Sovereignty-as-a-Service" platform to deploy, coordinate, and sustain autonomous robotic combat capabilities. Its systems have been battle-tested with the IDF since October 2023, logging over 500,000 operational hours.

Aleph Neuro is a San Francisco research lab building non-invasive brain interfaces, aiming to read and transmit "latents" — raw thoughts — toward direct brain-to-brain communication. In June 2026 it publicly launched with what it claims are the highest-resolution 3D images of the human brain captured from outside the skull, delivering MRI-level detail without surgery or bulky hardware. The system is built on Butterfly Network's Ultrasound-on-Chip technology via the Butterfly Embedded licensing and co-development program.

Arena Physica (formerly Arena/Arena.ai) is a New York-based AI hardware engineering company building 'electromagnetic superintelligence.' Its Atlas platform and Heaviside physics-native foundation model predict electromagnetic behavior from design geometry in milliseconds, helping customers like AMD, Anduril, and Sivers Semiconductors design, test, and validate hardware across semiconductors, aerospace, automotive, and defense.

Armstrong Robotics builds general-purpose robots for commercial kitchens, starting with AI-powered dishwashing automation that handles messy, unpredictable environments with commercial-grade reliability. Its systems use robot arms with 3D perception trained on thousands of hours of real dishwashing data and integrate with existing commercial dish machines on a subscription model. The platform is designed to extend to other repetitive kitchen tasks beyond dishwashing.

AstroForge is a deep-space mining company focused on extracting valuable metals from asteroids, particularly platinum group metals (PGMs) and critical minerals. The company develops technology to locate, reach, and mine asteroids to provide sustainable resources for Earth and space industries.

Fusion energy startup developing modular micro-fusion reactors for compact, scalable clean power and propulsion applications.

Axiom Space is a Houston-based commercial space infrastructure company building the world's first fully commercial space station, Axiom Station, as a successor to the ISS. It also conducts private astronaut missions to the ISS and develops the AxEMU next-generation spacesuit under a NASA contract.

Axis Robotics builds a distributed data engine for physical AI, letting a global network of contributors generate robot training data through browser-based teleoperation and mobile collection tools. Its simulation-first stack combines large-scale pretraining data, hybrid augmentation, and corrective post-training feedback into a continuously improving loop for embodied AI models. The network claims 100,000+ contributors producing roughly 1,200 hours of simulation and 20,000 hours of real-world data monthly, with commercial partners including Booster Robotics and Geely Auto.

Ayar Labs builds optical I/O and in-package photonics technology to reduce data-movement bottlenecks in large-scale AI and high-performance computing systems.

Blue Origin is Jeff Bezos's private aerospace company developing rockets, spacecraft, and lunar landers for commercial, government, and civil space missions. It operates New Shepard suborbital flights and is developing the orbital New Glenn rocket and Blue Moon lunar lander.

BotBuilt develops robotics and automation systems for homebuilding, including robotic framing workflows to improve speed and labor efficiency.

Breakthru Medicine is a biotech company developing novel oncology therapies, with a focus on first-in-class radioconjugate treatment approaches for cancer.

Carbon Robotics develops AI-powered agricultural robotics, including its flagship LaserWeeder which uses computer vision, deep learning, and CO2 lasers to identify and eliminate weeds with millimeter accuracy. The company also offers Carbon ATK, a tractor autonomy solution, and operates across 15 countries supporting over 100 crop types. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Seattle.

A venture-backed defense tech company building mass-producible hypersonic weapons systems using modern hardware development and manufacturing processes.

comma.ai builds openpilot, an open-source driver-assistance system, and sells aftermarket hardware (comma 3X/comma four) that adds lane centering, adaptive cruise control, and dashcam features to existing vehicles. Founded by George Hotz, the company takes a contrarian, community-driven approach to autonomous driving rather than pursuing a robotaxi fleet or OEM partnerships.

ConeLabs provides AI-powered inspection solutions for construction and infrastructure. Using advanced drone technology and 3D modeling, the platform captures high-resolution images of structures, converts them into 3D models, and uses AI to detect, identify, and categorize defects across buildings, bridges, utilities, and transport infrastructure.

Conifer develops compact, rare-earth-free electric powertrains using patented axial flux motor technology and ferrite magnets. Founded by ex-Apple and Lucid engineers, the company's software-driven manufacturing approach enables cost-effective, supply-chain-resilient motors for two- and four-wheel vehicles, lawn equipment, and tractors.

Cortical Labs builds biological computers by integrating lab-grown human neurons with silicon chips. Their CL1 system represents the first commercial biological computer, enabling energy-efficient computation through living neural networks for AI and scientific research applications.

Danu Robotics is an Edinburgh, Scotland-based startup that builds H.E.R.O., an AI-powered robot that sorts recyclable materials using a mechanical pincer claw gripper instead of suction-based systems. Founded by Amy Ma after six years of development, the company targets the roughly $20 billion recycling-sorting market across Europe and North America, competing with suction-based rivals Glacier and RecycleEye.

Dusty Robotics develops robotic layout systems for construction teams, including the FieldPrinter platform for translating BIM plans to jobsites.

Ecorobotix is a Swiss agricultural technology company that develops AI-powered precision spraying systems, including the ARA field sprayer, which uses computer vision and machine learning to detect individual plants and apply herbicides with up to 95% less chemical usage. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, the company has deployed approximately 1,000 ARA units across Europe and operates in over 20 countries.

Paris-based defense tech startup founded by former MBDA engineers building AI-powered air defense systems to detect and intercept hostile drones. Its platform, Mystique, combines electrically propelled interceptors with distributed sensors and AI-driven detection for layered, low-cost interception.

FieldAI builds Field Foundation Models, risk-aware AI software that gives robots a hardware-agnostic "brain" to operate autonomously in unstructured, GPS-denied industrial environments without prior maps. Founded by veterans of NASA JPL, DARPA, and Google DeepMind, its robots are deployed across construction, energy, security, and manufacturing sites globally.

Gatsby is a San Francisco-based on-demand consumer platform for humanoid robot cleaning services, operating under parent entity West Egg Labs. Founded in January 2026 by Aron Frishberg, the company is robot-agnostic and builds the consumer distribution layer for humanoid robotics rather than competing on hardware. The service is live in San Francisco via an iOS app.

Deep-tech mining and energy startup developing proprietary laser-based drilling systems to unlock Europe's critical minerals and geothermal energy at extreme depths. Building Europe's first technology-driven mining and energy platform with plans to begin selling European-mined critical raw materials by 2029.

Hanomi builds AI software for mechanical engineering teams, turning 3D CAD models into production-ready drawings and structured manufacturing knowledge.

Hapta Labs is a San Francisco robotics infrastructure startup building one standard for robot data — unified manipulation, egocentric, teleoperation and multi-sensor datasets, plus the custom capture hardware and rigs that produce them. It trains models on that data so robot skills transfer across embodiments. Founded by Sylvia Li (CMU AI, Tsinghua math), with a team drawn from CMU, Stanford, Meta and NVIDIA.

Hyphen is a foodservice automation platform combining robotics and AI to put culinary operations on autopilot. Their Automated Makeline assembles digital orders at 350+ meals per hour with zero errors, while CulinaryOS handles inventory, labor, and order management for restaurant operators.

Instance (Instance Labs) automates evaluation of robot learning policies. Its product analyzes rollout video and returns success/failure verdicts with per-subtask breakdowns and evidence, replacing the manual work of watching rollouts, judging outcomes, and resetting test environments. Founded 2026 by MIT alums Claire Mao (CEO) and Lucy Cai (CTO), part of Y Combinator's S26 batch.

Isembard builds AI-powered, software-driven factories (via its MasonOS platform) to reshore high-precision manufacturing for aerospace, defence, energy, and robotics industries in Europe. It uses a franchise model to convert or launch machine shops that run on its proprietary automation and AI system.

Develops modular command-and-control platforms that integrate commercial sensors, drones, radar, and weapons systems for border security and battlefield operations.

MatrixSpace develops AI-enabled 4D radar sensing and edge-to-cloud situational awareness software for defense, security, and critical infrastructure applications.

MicroAGI is a Berlin-based data research lab accelerating embodied AI by recording real-world human task execution through camera-wearing workers, generating structured egocentric video datasets for robotics and AI labs. The company runs active data-collection operations in NYC through its Shift app, targeting the fast-growing market for physical-world AI training data.

Morpheus Space develops electric propulsion systems and mobility solutions for satellites, including modular thrusters for commercial and government space missions.

NEURA Robotics is a German company building cognitive and humanoid robots powered by embodied AI, including the 4NE-1 humanoid and the MiPA personal-assistant robot. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Metzingen, Germany, it develops full-stack robotics that combine proprietary hardware, sensors, and AI software for industrial and service use. In June 2026 it announced a record Series C of up to $1.4B led by Tether, with Amazon, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm participating.

Neuron Industries builds the Cortex AIC, an AI-programmable industrial controller that replaces traditional PLCs, with control programming in plain English/Python, an integrated development environment, HMI, and process-data historian built into the device. The company is based in El Segundo, CA and is part of Y Combinator's Summer 2026 batch.

Noetive is an AI NeoLab building self-improving agentic AI paired with multimodal sensing hardware to bring 'intelligence of record' to physical-economy operations like manufacturing, logistics, and energy. Founded in 2026 by ex-Meta VP Amir Frenkel and Dan Barak, it emerged from stealth in September 2026 with a $41M seed round led by Eclipse.

Noitom Robotics develops embodied intelligence technology for humanoid robots, providing high-fidelity motion capture, teleoperation systems, and multimodal data acquisition platforms used to train robot perception and locomotion. The company positions itself as a data infrastructure provider — 'a robot company that doesn't build robots' — supplying scalable training data and tooling to robot manufacturers and embodied AI model teams. It spun out of Noitom Technology, a global leader in professional motion capture.

NORI Robotics is a San Francisco-based startup building affordable bimanual home robots. Its flagship NORI L2 is a two-armed household robot starting at $1,288 that autonomously handles chores like loading the dishwasher, folding laundry, and cleaning, with a skill-sharing marketplace and remote-operation support. The robot is made in the US and slated to ship summer 2026.

NovoLINC develops breakthrough nanostructured thermal interface materials for AI computing, data centers, and high-power electronics. Its proprietary technology achieves 10X lower thermal resistance than conventional materials, enabling better heat dissipation for next-generation semiconductor chips and cooling critical AI infrastructure.

OpenMind is building an open, Android-like software stack for robots to make autonomous systems easier to build, deploy, and coordinate.

Swiss aerospace startup developing spacecraft and orbital transfer vehicles for in-orbit satellite transportation and servicing, including inspection, life extension, and docking. Based in Villeneuve/Lausanne, Switzerland, it aims to extend satellite life and support space sovereignty.

Perseus Defense builds affordable, portable guided micro-missiles to detect, identify, and destroy hostile drones for the U.S. Department of Defense and homeland security customers. Its flagship Harpe Interceptor offers a 2km range at under $10,000 per shot, positioned as "America's Golden Dome for Drones."

Phinity Labs builds AI agents and training infrastructure that autonomously design, verify, and tape out custom chips, using reinforcement learning environments to teach large language models hardware engineering workflows. Founded in 2025 by Sonya Jin and Aadi Nashikkar, the company works with leading foundation model labs on prompt-to-silicon chip design.

Poseidon is a full-stack data layer that sources, collects, and curates real-world data (speech, video, spatial, sensor, and behavioral) to train physical AI models. It operates a contributor network and workforce partnerships across Korea and Asia to capture industrial and household task data at scale.

PrismaX is a decentralized robotics service layer that sets standards for how robots, data, and human teleoperation are deployed to advance physical AI. The platform uses token incentives to crowdsource high-quality training data and operates a decentralized teleoperations network for robotics foundation model development. It combines AI, robotics, and Web3 to address data scarcity bottlenecks in autonomous robot development.

Prometheus is a Physical AI company co-founded by Jeff Bezos and Vik Bajaj building an 'artificial general engineer' — AI that can design, experiment on, and manufacture complex physical products such as jet engines, drugs, and advanced materials. The company operates out of San Francisco, London, and Zurich, recruiting researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta. It raised a $12B round in June 2026 at a ~$41B valuation, bringing total funding above $18B.

Rebulk (formerly dScribe AI) uses computer vision and autonomous drones to track bulk inventory such as grain, sand, and gravel in real time. The platform creates 3D reconstructions from drone and fixed camera feeds to deliver precise volume and weight measurements for industrial supply chains, serving customers in agriculture and mining. Part of Y Combinator's S25 batch.

Rhem Labs is a robotics company based across San Francisco, Germany, and Tokyo building AI-powered home companion robots for family health care. Its first product, Rhem, uses onboard sensors to measure vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate, SpO2, ECG, body temperature) and home air quality, running an on-device AI engine to explain readings and take action like scheduling appointments. Founded in 2025 by CEO Jacob Shen and CTO Huey Schink, the company is part of Y Combinator's Fall 2026 batch and launched Rhem on Kickstarter in July 2026.

Schematik is an AI-native IDE — a 'Cursor for hardware' — that turns a plain-English project description into firmware code, wiring diagrams, a component list, and step-by-step assembly instructions for Arduino, ESP32, and Raspberry Pi Pico. Generated firmware can be flashed directly to boards via PlatformIO or exported for customization. The product is built on Anthropic's Claude models.

Automation technology provider for fish processing industry using sensor fusion, edge computing, and machine learning for humane seafood processing

Sierra Space designs and builds commercial spacecraft, space station modules, and orbital infrastructure, including the Dream Chaser reusable spaceplane and components for the Orbital Reef commercial space station. The company is headquartered in Louisville, Colorado, with additional operations in Broomfield and Centennial, Colorado.

Slate Auto is a Bezos-backed EV startup building a customizable, sub-$25,000 electric pickup truck. Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Troy, Michigan, it has raised roughly $1.4 billion to date and targets the start of production by the end of 2026. The company reports over 150,000 reservations for its modular, accessory-driven truck.

Starcloud is building orbital data-center infrastructure to provide large-scale compute capacity in space, leveraging abundant solar power and passive cooling.

Tera AI develops software-only, platform-agnostic spatial reasoning AI for autonomous robots. Their system enables zero-shot visual navigation across any robot type and environment without hardware modifications, using only existing cameras and onboard GPUs. Founded in 2023 by Tony Zhang (former ML lead at Google X), the company targets robotic manufacturers looking to expand autonomy across diverse platforms.

Topological builds physics-based foundation models for CAD topology optimization, generating manufacturable, physics-aware designs. Its flagship model, UToP-v1, understands physics, geometry, and manufacturability to produce efficient designs far faster than traditional simulation-based methods.

Transfyr builds physical AI infrastructure that captures scientific work through sensors and multimodal models. Its platform converts laboratory execution into machine-readable data for reproducibility, automation, training, and technology transfer. The Cambridge, Massachusetts startup operates an in-house wet lab and is hiring technical staff.

UFORCE is a UK-based defense technology company formed from the merger of nine Ukrainian defense firms, bringing battle-proven autonomous aerial, maritime, and ground systems to Western allied militaries. Backed by Shield Capital, Lakestar, and Ballistic Ventures, it became the first Ukrainian-origin defense-tech unicorn in 2026.

Ultra is a Brooklyn-based robotics startup that leases stationary dual-arm warehouse robots called Operator (OP1) to e-commerce fulfillment operations under a robots-as-a-service model. Founded in 2024 by Jon Miller Schwartz, Max Friefeld, Chetan Parthiban, and Oliver Ortlieb, the company has deployed OP1 units across New York, Georgia, New Jersey, and Texas warehouses, packing over 500,000 orders, and partners with Physical Intelligence to power its robots with the π0.6 foundation model.

Ulysses (legal entity Ulysses Ecosystem Engineering) builds vertically integrated autonomous underwater and surface vehicles for marine ecology restoration, offshore infrastructure inspection, and defense/ISR missions. Its modular Mako AUV, Leviathan surface vessel, and Kraken launch-and-recovery system target offshore energy, subsea telecom, port security, and allied defense customers.

Vantora (formerly UP.Labs) is a venture studio that co-builds AI-native operating companies with Fortune 500 industrial partners such as Porsche, Alaska Airlines, and J.B. Hunt, focusing on physical AI for manufacturing, logistics, energy, and transportation. It has launched 17 ventures since 2022 and raised its first outside capital, $100M from Silversmith Capital Partners, in September 2026.

Vight is an early-stage startup designing and flight-testing a two-seat electric VTOL aircraft for personal, point-to-point air travel, initially targeting rural property owners and flight schools. Founded in 2025 by Tsung Xu in Mountain View, CA, the company is actively flight-testing subscale prototypes.

Walden Robotics is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based physical AI company spun out of Toyota Research Institute that builds general-purpose humanoid robots with wheeled bases for manufacturing and logistics. Its robots, powered by proprietary Large Behavior Models, are already deployed in a pilot program at a North American Toyota factory, performing tasks like parts loading and machine cleaning.

Z Modular designs and manufactures offsite modular building systems for multifamily, hospitality, and commercial construction projects.

Zipline designs, manufactures, and operates autonomous drones for last-mile delivery of medical supplies, retail goods, and food, aiming to make instant delivery accessible worldwide. Based in South San Francisco, it partners with health systems, retailers, and restaurant chains across the US, Africa, and beyond.