SF tech company wants a robot to clean your house for $30 an hour

Startup Tau Robotics has begun sending its proprietary robots to clean San Francisco homes this week, another sign of the burgeoning robotics sector looking to shake up everyday tasks.

Early customers are invite-only, but the company has a wait list and plans to expand. It’s charging $30 an hour for services including vacuuming, emptying trash cans and wiping down surfaces.

“We started Tau because sophisticated manufactured products have become remarkably affordable, while physical services remain expensive and difficult to access,” he told the Chronicle.

The robots are controlled by an AI system alongside a human operator. Tau aims to eventually shift the human to safety supervision and then remove the need for a human completely — a progression similar to the path of autonomous vehicle companies like Waymo.

“Home cleaning is a useful starting point for humanoids because it addresses a clear consumer need while exposing the robots to diverse, unstructured real-world environments,” Koch said. 

Tau was founded in 2024 and has raised $2.6 million in pre-seed funding, Koch said.

“We are deliberately starting small. Our current team consists of three engineers, and we initially expect to complete only a few cleanings per week, with one humanoid deployed per appointment. This allows us to improve reliability, safety, and the customer experience before increasing capacity,” Koch said.

Numerous other startups are focusing on other consumer sectors. Electric Sheep Robotics and Yarbo, both in the Bay Area, are building robots to mow lawns and do other yard work. Food delivery robots are being tested by DoorDash, along with Starship Technologies, Serve Robotics and Coco Robotics.

Koch previously studied at Technical University of Munich and developed a robot arm known as the “Koch arm.” Tau Robotics’ work builds on that idea, and it started by building and testing millions of robot arms, Kock said in 2024.