Walden Robotics has launched from stealth with $300m and a $1.1bn valuation. The Toyota spin-out builds humanoids for factories, and it left off the legs on purpose.
“If you listen to the people on the factory floor, they aren’t ready, and they don’t want them yet.” That is Russ Tedrake, telling Bloomberg why his new robots roll on wheels instead of walking on legs.
Tedrake runs Walden Robotics, a Cambridge startup that came out of stealth on Wednesday with $300m in funding and a $1.1bn valuation. It is a Toyota spin-out, and its robots already work in a Toyota factory.
Toyota and Deviation Capital co-led the seed round. Nvidia, Boeing, Samsung Ventures, and CoreWeave Ventures also put money in. That is a heavy roster for a company barely six months old.
Wheels, not legs
