Rivian Spin-Out Mind Robotics Raises $500 Million to Develop AI-Powered Industrial Robots

Mind Robotics, an industrial robotics company spun out of electric vehicle maker Rivian, has raised $500 million in a Series A funding round. The round was co-led by venture firms Accel and Andreessen Horowitz.

The funding was announced on Wednesday. It follows a $115 million seed round led by Eclipse in late 2025. With the latest round, Mind Robotics has raised $615 million in total funding within a few months of its launch.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the new funding places the startup’s valuation at around $2 billion.

A robotics venture created by Rivian’s founder

Mind Robotics was created by RJ Scaringe, founder and CEO of Rivian. The company was spun out of Rivian in November 2025, with Scaringe serving as chairman.

The company aims to use data generated from Rivian’s electric vehicle factory to train industrial robots. The goal is to build systems that can perform tasks requiring greater dexterity and adaptability. At the same time, Rivian’s production environment provides a testing ground to evaluate the robots in real factory conditions.

The company “was founded to address a structural gap with current industrial automation solutions,” according to a press release announcing the Series A round. “Existing industrial robotics can perform repeatable, dimensionally stable tasks, but a large share of factory value-add work requires human-like dexterity, adaptation, and physical reasoning that classical robotics cannot address. Mind Robotics is building the AI foundation — models, hardware, and deployment infrastructure — to close that gap.”

Focus on practical factory robotics

Scaringe told The Wall Street Journal that the company expects to deploy a large number of robots by the end of the year.

In recent discussions, he has emphasized that the startup will focus on traditional industrial robot designs rather than humanoid robots. Over the past year, several companies have introduced humanoid robots for factory work, including those developed by Tesla.

However, Scaringe indicated that Mind Robotics will prioritize practical manufacturing use cases. “Doing cartwheels does not create value in manufacturing,” Scaringe told The Wall Street Journal.

Potential collaboration with Rivian

Rivian and Mind Robotics may continue to collaborate in other areas as well.

In December, Rivian announced that it was developing custom silicon chips designed to support the autonomous vehicle software used in its electric cars. During an interview with TechCrunch, Scaringe suggested these chips could also support robotics systems.

“it doesn’t take a lot of imagination” to think that Rivian might sell those custom chips to Mind Robotics. “It’s a robotics processor, so it could work really well for that,” he said.

Another spin-out from Rivian

Mind Robotics is the second company spun out of Rivian in 2025.

Earlier in the year, Rivian launched Also, an electric mobility venture. The company is developing a modular high-end e-bike and small electric cargo vehicles designed for commercial use, including logistics operations for Amazon.

Also received backing from Eclipse and later raised $200 million from Greenoaks Capital. The company’s valuation currently stands at around $1 billion.