July 10, 2024: Skild AI, an AI driven robotics startup has raised $300 million in a Series A funding round to consolidate its business model and accelerate its training datasets for future commercial use. Additionally, the funds will augment hiring in new talents in AI, robotics, engineering, operations, and security domains.
Skild brain is the first scalable robotics foundation model claims the company. This brain can adapt across hardware and tasks. The models are robust by design.
Deepak Pathak, Co-founder of Skild AI, wrote in a post on X “Thrilled to announce Skild AI! Over the past year, Abhinav Gupta and I have been working with our top-tier team to build an AI foundation model grounded in the physical world.” .
The startup Founded by former Carnegie Mellon University professors Abhinav Gupta and Deepak Pathak in 2023 develops artificial intelligence-powered brains for robots valuation rose to $1.5 billion after this latest round of funding. The robotics firm states its model is trained on significantly more data points than competing models—at least 1,000 times more.
Skild AI model is a general-purpose AI that can be used in various robots and scenarios, including tasks related to locomotion and navigation.
“Skild AI has achieved massive breakthroughs in a short period, and we believe they’re a one-of-a-kind company that could redefine our notions of what machines are capable of,” said Raviraj Jain, Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Skild AI building general purpose robotics
Jain added that the company’s innovation around leveraging the core principles of foundation models into the real world puts the industry on the path of general-purpose robotics. The model will empower low-cost robots to operate across various industries, from handling tough conditions to performing complex tasks in homes and factories.
Stephanie Zhan, Partner, Sequoia Capital said “A GPT-3 moment is coming to the world of robotics. It will spark a monumental shift that brings advancements similar to what we’ve seen in the world of digital intelligence to the physical world. Since partnering with Skild AI at the seed round, I have deep conviction that they are the team to pursue one of the most ambitious visions of our era.”
The Skild AI team includes robotics and AI experts who have previously worked at Meta, Tesla, NVIDIA, Amazon, and Google, as well as universities such as Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and UC Berkeley.
The latest funding round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue, SoftBankGroup, and Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions). Other participating investors include Felicis Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Menlo Ventures, General Catalyst, CRV, Amazon, SV Angel, and Carnegie Mellon University.
