Mind Robotics, an innovative industrial robotics laboratory established as a spin-off from the electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian, has successfully secured $500 million in a Series A funding round. This significant investment was co-led by prominent venture capital firms Accel and Andreessen Horowitz.
The financing, officially announced on Wednesday, builds upon a previous $115 million seed round led by Eclipse in late 2025. This brings Mind Robotics' total capital raised to an impressive $615 million within mere months of its inception. According to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the development, this latest round elevates the startup's valuation to approximately $2 billion.
Mind Robotics was conceived by Rivian CEO and founder RJ Scaringe. It officially spun out of Rivian in November 2025, with Scaringe assuming the role of chairman. The core vision behind the venture is to leverage data generated from Rivian's electric vehicle factory to train industrial robots, enhancing their dexterity and adaptability. This also provides a crucial proving ground for the practical utility of these advanced robotic systems.
A press release accompanying the Series A announcement stated that the company "was founded to address a structural gap with current industrial automation solutions." It further elaborated, "Existing industrial robotics can perform repeatable, dimensionally stable tasks, but a large share of factory value-add work requires human-like dexterity, adaptation, and physical reasoning that classical robotics cannot address. Mind Robotics is building the AI foundation — models, hardware, and deployment infrastructure — to close that gap."
Scaringe informed The Wall Street Journal that Mind Robotics anticipates deploying a substantial number of robots by the close of this year. Since the company's announcement, he has consistently emphasized the startup's commitment to focusing on more conventional factory robot designs, deliberately contrasting with the highly publicized humanoid robots that have captured considerable attention recently, such as those developed by Tesla. Scaringe underscored his pragmatic approach, telling The Wall Street Journal, "Doing cartwheels does not create value in manufacturing."
Beyond providing training data and a deployment environment for the robots, several other avenues for collaboration between Rivian and Mind Robotics are emerging. In December, Rivian revealed its ongoing development of custom silicon, designed to power the autonomous vehicle software intended for its cars.
During an interview with TechCrunch at a recent event, Scaringe remarked that "it doesn’t take a lot of imagination" to envision Rivian supplying these custom chips to Mind Robotics. He added, "It’s a robotics processor, so it could work really well for that."
Mind Robotics represents the second company spun out by Rivian in 2025. The first was Also, an electric mobility firm that initiated its offerings with a high-end modular e-bike and small electric cargo vehicles for Amazon. Also also received early backing from Eclipse and has since raised an additional $200 million from Greenoaks Capital, with its current valuation estimated at around $1 billion.
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