Jacobi Robotics

Inventing the future, one building block at a time

To accelerate the adoption of robot automation, so that people can focus on meaningful and creative work.

We are optimistic for a future where people live healthier, happier, more creative, and more sustainable lives, enabled by the automation of manual labor.

We are still in the infancy of automation

There are currently more than 2.5M unfilled jobs across manufacturing, logistics, construction, and agriculture in the US. Yet, in 2022, only 40,000 robot arms were deployed, about one and a half robot arms for every one hundred unfilled positions. This is because it is too slow and too expensive to automate.

Our Vision

We see a world where our technology enables businesses to automate as easily as they create mobile apps today, creating a paradigm shift in how we work and what kind of work we do. To achieve our vision, we must do three things

  • Reduce the development time of robot arm applications by 10x

    instead of starting from scratch, leverage off-the-shelf building blocks,

  • Expand the available talent pool for robot automation by 100x

    instead of limiting robotics to ~15,000 experts, empower any of the ~1.6 million software developers in the US today,

  • make robots safe around humans

    instead of putting robots in cages, use reactive motion planning that allows robots to adapt to dynamic environments.

We are building and providing businesses with the missing middle layer between the hardware and application-specific features. Today, our proprietary motion planning technology enables robotics companies to make new deployments in days instead of months while increasing robot throughput by up to 30%. Motion is the first of multiple building blocks, such as perception, grasping, drivers for hardware abstraction, and more. Together, these building blocks form the Jacobi Platform, which in the same way the cloud powers the internet today, will power future robotics applications.

About the Team

We were founded by the world’s foremost experts in robot manipulation and motion planning, and are supported by first-rate investors and advisors.

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    Max Cao

    Co-founder / CEO

    Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, Imperial College London. Former consultant at McKinsey.

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    Yahav Avigal

    Co-founder / CTO

    PhD in A.I. and Robotics from UC Berkeley. Former product manager at Cybint and engineer at Intel RealSense.

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    Jeff Ichnowski

    Co-founder / Chief Roboticist

    Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, formerly postdoc at UC Berkeley, principal architect at SuccessFactors.

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    Ken Goldberg

    Co-founder / Chief Scientist

    Professor at UC Berkeley. Has published over 300 papers, 3 books, and holds 9 US Patents. Co-founder and Chief Scientist at Ambi Robotics.

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    Arno Strotgen

    VP, Head of Business Development

    Former Global Head of Service and Digital Platform at ABB Robotics. Responsible for 1,600+ people and $500M+ in P&L.

Our Investors

Moxxie Ventures
Foothill Ventures
Humba Ventures
House Fund
Swift Ventures
Skydeck Berkeley
LDVP
Courtyard Ventures