Genesis AI, a robotics artificial intelligence startup, has secured $105 million in seed funding—one of the largest such rounds in AI history—to develop universal foundation models for robotics applications. The round was co-led by Eclipse Ventures and Khosla Ventures, with the company emerging from stealth mode after operating quietly since December 2024.
The startup was founded by Zhou Xian, a robotics PhD from Carnegie Mellon University, and Théophile Gervet, formerly a researcher at French AI company Mistral AI. Their vision centers on creating a single AI system capable of controlling different types of robots across varied applications, from laboratory automation to household tasks, rather than developing specialized models for each use case.
Genesis AI's core innovation lies in its proprietary physics engine that generates synthetic training data for robotics models. Traditional robotics AI development requires extensive real-world data collection, which is both expensive and time-intensive. The company addresses this bottleneck by creating detailed simulations that model physical interactions with high accuracy, allowing AI models to learn complex robotic behaviors without requiring physical training environments.
This approach represents a significant departure from current robotics development practices, where companies typically build task-specific robots with custom software. Foundation models—large AI systems trained on diverse datasets—have transformed natural language processing and computer vision, but robotics has lagged due to data collection challenges and the complexity of physical interactions.
The substantial seed funding reflects investor confidence in the foundation model approach for robotics. Eclipse Ventures and Khosla Ventures have previously backed successful robotics and AI companies, suggesting institutional belief in Genesis's technical approach.
Industry experts note that successful universal robotics AI could accelerate automation across manufacturing, healthcare, and service industries. However, the company faces significant technical challenges, including ensuring safety across diverse applications and achieving the computational efficiency required for real-time robotic control.
Genesis AI plans to use the funding to expand its engineering team and advance development of its foundation models, though specific product launch timelines remain undisclosed.