Eka Robotics Hits $1.45B Valuation on Its Grasping Breakthrough

Eka Robotics has closed a $150 million Series A at a $1.45 billion post money valuation, led by a16z and F-Prime. The startup was founded by MIT professor Pulkit Agrawal and former Google DeepMind researcher Tuomas Haarnoja.

Its system pairs a force sensitive gripper with a new deep learning model for manipulation. Investors told TechCrunch it is already beating human performance on certain picking tasks and moves with unusually smooth, humanlike motion.

Why it matters: reliably picking up varied objects is still one of robotics' hardest unsolved problems. If Eka's results hold outside the lab, it could unlock warehouse and factory jobs that arms still fumble.