Mind Robotics, a company specializing in industrial robotics that originated from electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian, has secured $500 million in a Series A investment. The funding round was jointly led by venture capital firms Accel and Andreessen Horowitz.

EMBED_PLACEHOLDER_0

Announced on Wednesday, this financing follows a $115 million seed round led by Eclipse in late 2025. Combined, these investments bring the startup's total funding to $615 million in the short period since its establishment. According to an initial report, this latest round values Mind Robotics at approximately $2 billion.

The company was established by Rivian's CEO and founder, RJ Scaringe, and was formally separated from Rivian in November 2025. Scaringe serves as the chairman of Mind Robotics. The core concept involves utilizing data from Rivian's own electric vehicle factory to train industrial robots, enhancing their dexterity and adaptability. The factory also serves as a testing ground to demonstrate the robots' practical utility.

A press release for the Series A round stated that the company "was founded to address a structural gap with current industrial automation solutions." It further explained, "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 has indicated that Mind Robotics plans to deploy a significant number of robots by the end of this year. Since the startup's announcement, he has emphasized its focus on conventional factory robot designs rather than the highly publicized humanoid robots, such as those developed by Tesla, which have attracted considerable attention. "Doing cartwheels does not create value in manufacturing," Scaringe remarked.

Beyond providing training data and a deployment site, Rivian and Mind Robotics may explore other collaborative opportunities. In December, Rivian revealed it had been developing its own custom silicon chip to power the autonomous vehicle software for its cars. Scaringe noted, "It’s a robotics processor, so it could work really well for that."

Mind Robotics represents the second company spun out from Rivian in 2025. The first was Also, an electric mobility startup initially launching with a high-end modular e-bike and small electric cargo vehicles for Amazon. Also received backing from Eclipse and has since raised an additional $200 million from Greenoaks Capital, achieving a current valuation of about $1 billion.