When Seth Winterroth left his job at GE Ventures to help launch Eclipse Ventures in 2015, robotics was on his mind. More specifically, he was focused on the number of early-stage robotics startups that were struggling to launch due to a lack of investor interest.
He continually heard the same refrain from startups founded by teams fresh out of postdocs at institutions like Waterloo, CMU, or MIT: they were having a very hard time raising institutional venture capital. At that time in Silicon Valley, most venture capital was flowing into the application layer of mature computing platforms.
A lot has changed since then. After investing in robotics startups for ten years, Winterroth, now a partner at Eclipse, states that the time to invest in robotics has never been better. The robotics startup market has matured significantly, and the hardware and software powering these bots have gotten substantially better and cheaper.
Venture investing in the category is also gaining strong momentum. According to Crunchbase data, investors poured six billion dollars into robotics startups in the first seven months of 2025. The data company predicts that this year’s funding totals will eclipse those of 2024, making robotics one of the only non-AI categories to experience a boost in funding.
While one could argue that robotics is seeing a surge in investor interest because of AI, and it is correct to acknowledge AI’s role in advancing robotic technology, investors with long-term focus on the category say the industry did not reach this point solely because of recent AI advancements.
The real catalyst for the industry’s momentum actually happened back in 2013, Winterroth said, when Kiva Systems, a small startup based in Massachusetts, was acquired by Amazon. He likes to say that Kiva Systems’ acquisition was the acquisition that launched one thousand robotic startups. Between 2011 and 2016, a number of new companies were started. Some, like 6 River Systems or Clearpath Robotics, were successful, but most were not. However, that talent learned, and that learning compounded, carrying over into the next set of ventures.
This first wave helped attract engineers to the sector and helped companies figure out product-market fit.
Kira Noodleman, a partner at Bee Partners, echoed this sentiment. She told TechCrunch that the last decade of trial and error helped startups determine what the market is actually looking for in robotics and automation. Some companies, like Rapid Robotics which Noodleman backed, shut down while trying to figure out what the market wanted. Those failures have provided valuable lessons for the next batch of startup founders, who now have a much better idea of what potential customers want.
Noodleman’s own investing thesis changed as the market matured. The idea of lights-out manufacturing with zero humans in the loop is not happening, a fact proven back in the 2010s. Instead, the focus is on automating simple, repetitive tasks like machine tending, which represents many low-hanging fruit opportunities.
Fady Saad, a general partner at the early-stage robotics-focused Cybernetix Ventures, also launched his firm prior to the AI boom. He noticed he was spending a great deal of time connecting early-stage robotics companies to funding sources during his time as a co-founder at MassRobotics.
Falling hardware costs have further driven investor interest in the sector, Saad said. It is cheaper to build robots today than it was five years ago. This reduction in cost provides companies with a more viable path to scale and makes them more attractive to potential venture backers. Advances in sensor technology, compute, and batteries created the perfect timing for developing full-stack robotics solutions.
Advancements in AI are also helping the industry. While many tout AI as the main reason for increased interest in robotics, alongside a fascination with humanoid robots, it is not the only factor. Saad added that while AI and large language models can be helpful for training robots, these models are primarily trained on online information, whereas robots interact with the real world. Companies are building models based on real-life data, but Saad predicted it will take longer to capture and train robots, especially those designed to exist alongside people, on world data.
Momentum in the industry is swelling, but that does not mean every startup has figured out the best approach. Some categories within robotics are not as mature as others. Some of the first markets to adopt robotics and automation, including manufacturing, warehousing, and construction, continue to be attractive for robotics startup backers.
For Winterroth, Saad, and Noodleman, healthcare and surgical-related robots remain a compelling investment area. Noodleman adds eldercare to that category as well. In-home assistance is becoming interesting due to burning labor shortages in fields like manufacturing and mining, aging populations, and a lack of available humans at any price, making even imperfect robotics a better solution than nothing.
Saad added that vertically-focused robotics companies tend to have access to more real-world and physical data than horizontal players.
One area these VCs are not as excited about is humanoids or consumer robotics, especially consumer-focused humanoids. Saad is not convinced that people will want to have a robot in their house anytime soon. He noted that even non-humanoid consumer-focused robotics companies have struggled to generate consumer excitement. The only successful consumer robot company, iRobot, failed to come up with a second act, as pool cleaning robots, lawn mowers, and mopping robots did not work out for various reasons.
While the industry is still years away from the commercial success of more intricate robotic models like humanoids, VCs are pouring more capital into the sector. Although this interest is driving up the costs of deals, the surge is a net positive for the industry, according to Winterroth and Saad, as the potential customer base for robotics startups continues to grow.
There are now enough examples of successful commercial robotics organizations to prove a large and thriving marketplace exists for these solutions. Ten or fifteen years ago, this was still questionable. Now, there is a lot of customer awareness.