Switzerland-based mimic has raised $16 million to deploy frontier bodily AI for robots that may deal with complicated, dexterous duties in manufacturing and logistics – positioning itself because the main European participant within the world race in direction of common goal robotics.
mimic, a Zurich-based robotics firm, has raised $16 million in funding led by Elaia, alongside Speedinvest, to deploy its frontier bodily AI throughout industries, enabling robots to deal with complicated, dexterous duties that standard machines can’t. This closely oversubscribed seed spherical additionally included participation from Founderful, 1st form, 10X Founders, 2100 Ventures and Sequoia Scout Fund, bringing mimic’s whole funding to over $20 million. The brand new capital will speed up the event of mimic’s basis AI mannequin and humanoid robotic fingers, and advance deployments with main world trade gamers.
On manufacturing facility flooring all over the world, thousands and thousands of intricate handbook duties nonetheless depend upon human talent. These duties stay out of attain for conventional automation throughout industries together with manufacturing, meeting and logistics. With labour shortages rising and industries reshoring manufacturing amid world uncertainty, the necessity for versatile and clever robots has by no means been clearer. Conventional robots excel at repetitive, pre-programmed motions in managed environments, however require expensive setup and customized coding for every process. On the similar time, the race to construct humanoid robots has drawn billions in funding, led largely by corporations within the US and China, however adoption stays very restricted. Security and regulatory issues, excessive prices and restricted dexterity have all slowed real-world deployment.
“Humanoids are thrilling, however there aren’t many industrial eventualities the place the full-body kind issue really provides worth,” says Stephan-Daniel Gravert, co-founder and CPO at mimic. “Our strategy pairs AI-driven dexterous robotic fingers with confirmed, off-the-shelf robotic arms to ship the identical capabilities in a approach that’s a lot easier, extra dependable and quickly deployable.
mimic builds frontier bodily AI fashions skilled on real-world human demonstrations, utilizing revolutionary strategies to beat the information shortage downside in robotics. Expert operators put on mimic’s proprietary information assortment gadgets whereas performing their each day work on manufacturing facility flooring, capturing detailed motion information from dwell manufacturing settings with out disrupting operations. These demonstrations are then used to coach AI fashions by way of imitation studying, enabling mimic’s humanoid robotic fingers to reliably reproduce human method. The corporate’s bodily AI fashions be certain that robots autonomously react to altering positions and orientations of objects, deal with disturbances and self-correct their actions, seamlessly working in environments designed for people.
“Our common goal AI fashions permit us to automate handbook labour in a approach that merely was not potential earlier than,” says Elvis Nava, co-founder and CTO at mimic. “Due to our distinctive give attention to human-like dexterity and human information, we’re aggressive on the robotic basis mannequin layer in addition to the applying layer.”
Labour markets throughout industrial economies are below sustained strain. Ageing workforces, rising manufacturing prices and efforts to scale back dependence on world provide chains are driving a shift in direction of reshoring and automation. Analysts undertaking the worldwide humanoid and dexterous robotics market alone might attain $38 billion by 2035, inside a broader robotics market estimated between $200 billion and $1 trillion by 2040.
mimic’s know-how is already being piloted with top-tier producers, together with Fortune 500 corporations and world automotive manufacturers. mimic can also be partnering with main multinational logistics suppliers and seeing sturdy buyer demand throughout many different labour-intensive sectors.
Based in 2024 as a spin-off from ETH Zurich, mimic brings collectively a multidisciplinary staff of 25 engineers, researchers, and operators. Over the previous yr, the corporate has secured non-dilutive funding from Switzerland’s federal innovation company and was chosen for the AWS Generative AI Accelerator, a program supporting early-stage corporations making use of superior AI to real-world challenges.
“We’re at an inflection level in robotics the place learning-based techniques meet actual industrial wants,” says Stefan Weirich, co-founder and CEO at mimic. “We make dexterity deployable at scale, closing the hole between what AI can do within the lab and what factories really want. Europe has the expertise, the infrastructure, and the demand, and we’re constructing the corporate that brings all of this collectively.”
Clément Vanden Driessche, Accomplice at Elaia, says “Elaia is thrilled to guide the seed spherical in mimic. The world-class staff at mimic is addressing one of the vital difficult issues in bodily AI: dexterous manipulation. mimic’s breakthrough strategy integrates a proprietary robotic hand, state-of-the-art basis fashions for robotics, and novel information acquisition and coaching strategies.” Vincent Faber, Funding Supervisor at Elaia provides “This allows autonomous, versatile manipulation and unlocks a beforehand untapped phase of the automation market, the place the demand for versatile options continues to develop.”
Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, Basic Accomplice at Speedinvest, says, “At Speedinvest, we’ve at all times believed that Europe’s energy lies in marrying world-class engineering with foundational analysis. With mimic, we see precisely that: a platform that unlocks human-level dexterity with frontier AI and solves billion-dollar issues on manufacturing facility flooring as we speak. That is the second Europe steps ahead to compete and lead within the new period of AI and robotics”
