Eka Robotics raises $150 million at a $1.45 billion valuation
Original title: Eka is worth $1.45B thanks to a physical AI model that has experts raving
The startup’s vision-force-action model and force-sensing gripper are aimed at dexterous object grasping.
Eka Robotics closed a $150 million Series A led by a16z and F-Prime, valuing the company at $1.45 billion post-money. Founded by MIT professor Pulkit Agrawal and former Google DeepMind researcher Tuomas Haarnoja, Eka pairs a force-sensitive gripper with a vision-force-action model trained by reinforcement learning in simulation. Eka says the robot picks up about 1,500 objects weighing up to 1 kg per hour and succeeds more than 95% of the time. Investors and outside roboticists quoted by TechCrunch describe strong demos; the article does not report an independent benchmark.
Unconfirmed: Speed, reliability, and “superhuman” claims come from Eka and investors, not an independent test.
- a16z partner Raghu Raguram co-led the round with F-Prime.
- Eka contrasts its model with vision-language-action approaches.
- The company says simulation can produce thousands of hours of experience in minutes.
- Quoted observers include Illinois professor Kris Hauser and an unnamed frontier-lab roboticist.
- Organizations
- Eka Roboticsa16zF-Prime
From the original article
5 min read at techcrunch.com
Eka Robotics may be the first robotic arm that is actually good at picking a wide range of objects up, and it is so smooth and human-like, it is wowing the industry.
By Tim Fernholz · techcrunch.com
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