Thoughts Robotics, an industrial robotics lab spun out of the electrical car maker Rivian, has raised $500 million in a Sequence A funding spherical co-led by enterprise companies Accel and Andreessen Horowitz.
The financing, introduced Wednesday, follows a $115 million seed spherical that was led by Eclipse in late 2025, bringing Thoughts Robotics’ whole fundraising to $615 million in the few months since its founding. This spherical brings the startup’s valuation to round $2 billion, in line with The Wall Road Journal, which first reported the news.
Thoughts Robotics was created by Rivian CEO and founder RJ Scaringe. It was spun out of Rivian in November 2025, with Scaringe serving as chairman. The final concept is that Scaringe desires to make use of information from Rivian’s electrical car manufacturing unit to coach industrial robots to be extra dexterous and adaptable, in addition to a venue to show out these robots’ usefulness.
The corporate “was based to deal with a structural hole with present industrial automation options,” in line with a press launch asserting the Sequence A spherical. “Current industrial robotics can carry out repeatable, dimensionally steady duties, however a big share of manufacturing unit value-add work requires human-like dexterity, adaptation, and bodily reasoning that classical robotics can’t deal with. Thoughts Robotics is constructing the AI basis — fashions, {hardware}, and deployment infrastructure — to shut that hole.”
Scaringe advised the Wall Road Journal that Thoughts Robotics can have numerous robots deployed by the tip of this yr. Within the months since Thoughts Robotics was introduced, he has spoken a couple of instances about how the startup intends to give attention to extra conventional manufacturing unit robotic designs, as a substitute of the much-hyped humanoid robots which have garnered a lot consideration over the past yr, like these constructed by Tesla. “Doing cartwheels doesn’t create worth in manufacturing,” Scaringe advised the Wall Road Journal.
Past the coaching information and a spot to deploy the robots, there are different methods Rivian and Thoughts Robotics would possibly collaborate shifting ahead. In December, Rivian introduced it had been creating its personal customized silicon meant to assist energy the autonomous car software program that can go on its automobiles.
In an interview with TechCrunch on the occasion, Scaringe mentioned “it doesn’t take plenty of creativeness” to assume that Rivian would possibly promote these customized chips to Thoughts Robotics. “It’s a robotics processor, so it may work very well for that,” he mentioned.
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Thoughts Robotics is the second firm Rivian spun out in 2025. The primary was Additionally, an electrical mobility firm that’s beginning with a high-end modular e-bike in addition to small electrical cargo automobiles for Amazon. That startup was additionally backed by Eclipse, and has since raised one other $200 million from Greenoaks Capital, with its valuation at present sitting round $1 billion.
