TL;DREx-Tesla Optimus lead Jay Li settled a trade secret lawsuit with Tesla and raised $11M to ship dexterous robot hands from his startup Proception.
Proception, a robotics startup founded by former Tesla Optimus engineer Jay Li, has settled a year-long trade secret lawsuit with Tesla and raised an $11 million seed round led by First Round Capital to build dexterous robotic hands. The company told TechCrunch it is now shipping the first batch of its high-dexterity hand to researchers and robotics companies while opening to wider orders. Y Combinator and early-stage fund BoxGroup also participated in the round.
Tesla sued Li and Proception in federal court in Northern California in June 2025, accusing Li of downloading confidential files related to robotic hand actuation onto personal devices before resigning and founding the startup six days later. The lawsuit alleged that Proception’s hands bore “striking similarities” to Tesla’s internal designs. After months of legal proceedings, the two sides reached a settlement and Tesla dismissed the case earlier this month.
Li told TechCrunch he views the experience as “a resilience test, or pressure test” and believes the company emerged stronger for having survived it. He also said he would not be surprised if Tesla eventually comes to Proception for help with its own hand problem. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
