AI startup Walden Robotics raises one of Boston’s biggest VC rounds
The Boston robotics scene got a jolt on Wednesday when a secretive startup founded this year with ties to MIT and automotive giant Toyota revealed it raised $300 million to build a line of AI-powered, partially humanoid machines.
Walden Robotics spun out from Toyota Research Institute with work by MIT professor Russ Tedrake on developing AI models to allow machines to operate in the real world — to help build cars or other items — without direct human control. The upper half of Walden’s bright orange and white robots have arms and a head with two sensors resembling eyes, and the bottom half is a base attached to wheels or a fixed platform.
The Walden deal marks one of the largest ever for Boston’s robotics ecosystem, trailing only fundraising rounds by autonomous carmaker Motional, according to research firm PitchBook. The largest robotics deals in recent years have backed humanoid robot startups elsewhere, such as California-based Figure and Apptronik in Texas.
Developing robots with bodies shaped like people to work in factories, warehouses, and other rough environments is among the hottest areas in all of tech. A wide variety of companies, from Tesla and Unitree Robotics in China to local players Boston Dynamics and Tutor Intelligence, are working on humanoids. Toyota has previously partnered with Boston Dynamics, which is owned by rival automaker Hyundai, on the Waltham company’s Atlas humanoid robot, which has arms and legs.
Based in Cambridge, Walden said it already has robots working in a Toyota plant in North America powered by its own AI models. Similar to the large language models that power AI chatbots, Walden dubbed its physical world AI models “large behavior models.”
The robots are designed to address labor shortages and increased demand for manufacturing in the automotive, aerospace, semiconductors, electronics, logistics, and life sciences industries, the company said.
The funding deal, which valued the startup at $1.1 billion, included backing from AI chip giant Nvidia, aerospace company Boeing, and New York VC firm Deviation Capital, along with Toyota.
“Providing real value to customers and building a robust and scalable business requires a deep understanding and respect for how manufacturing is done today,” Tedrake, now chief executive of Walden, said in a statement. “The best way to make fast and positive progress is by working closely together with the real experts.”
Though Walden is a new company, its executive ranks are filled with local robotics veterans.
Founding head of hardware Andy Marchese spent more than a decade at Amazon Robotics. Head of software Joe Romano worked at Berkshire Grey and Kiva Systems (which Amazon bought in 2012). . And chief product officer Dave Johnson worked at Draper Labs and startup Dexai Robotics in Cambridge, which he sold to Sony.
Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman.
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