Mind Robotics — When an EV Maker Turns to Building Factory Robots
RJ Scaringe, founder and CEO of Rivian (the EV company backed by Amazon), has launched a new company called Mind Robotics — an industrial AI robotics company that recently spun out of Rivian and raised a $500 million Series A, co-led by Accel and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
A $500M Series A is exceptionally large for the robotics industry — reflecting strong investor conviction in the potential of embodied AI, or AI with a physical presence in the real world.
Why this matters
1. Real production-line experience
Unlike most robotics companies that start in the lab, Mind Robotics has a rare advantage — real-world data from Rivian’s factories, where EV production lines are already operating.
Mind Robotics’ robots are designed to learn from real factory environments and will first be deployed in Rivian facilities before expanding into other industries.
2. Embodied AI is the next wave
Over the past 2–3 years, AI has largely lived on screens — chatbots, image generators, code-writing tools. But now AI is moving beyond the screen and into the physical world:
- Tesla has the Optimus humanoid robot
- Figure AI has raised more than $1B in total
- Wayve secured $1.2B for self-driving technology
- And now Mind Robotics enters the field with $500M
