Overview
Eka Robotics is a Cambridge, MA-based physical AI startup building general-purpose robotic intelligence through its Vision-Force-Action (VFA) foundation model. Founded by MIT professor Pulkit Agrawal and former Google DeepMind researcher Tuomas Haarnoja, the company exited stealth in April 2026 with a focus on contact-rich dexterity tasks — treating force as the native language of the physical world rather than relying on vision-language-action models.
Reality check
Pick speed and reliability (company-claimed, Oct 2026)
Picks objects up to 1 kg outside its training set at about 1,500 per hour versus about 600 for a human, with over 95% reliability in Eka's own tests.
Gripper hardware (company-claimed, Oct 2026)
Force-sensing gripper costs under $1,000 and is rated for 5 million duty cycles; the goal is the 20 million cycles of standard industrial arms.
Verified record
- Verified deployments
- None on file
- Active incidents
- None on file
Valuation of record
DEPLOY VERIFIEDPriced roundSeries A post-money
Key facts
Founded
Founders
Fundingsee investors →
Focus
Core technology
Stealth exit
Advisory board
Team provenance
Approach
Prior company (Pulkit Agrawal)
Industrial pilots (reported, Oct 2026)
Data & sources
News coverage
2
Web sources
5
7 sources backing this record.View all →
Models (1)
View all models →Eka Robotics on the deployment map
View the global mapEka Robotics has no verified deployments on the DEPLOY registry yet. Explore the deployment map by place and type.
No verified deployments for Eka Robotics on the DEPLOY record yet. Track Eka Robotics to know the moment the first one is verified.
Relationships
Current leadership (2)
- Pulkit Agrawal Co-founder & CEOsecondary-verified
- Tuomas Haarnoja Co-founder & CTOsecondary-verified
Founders (2)
- Pulkit Agrawalcofounderno longer at company
- Tuomas Haarnojacofounderno longer at company
Safety record
No incidents on record for Eka Robotics.
Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.
Full safety record: incidents, sourcing, and exposure data →
Recent coverage
Eka Robotics in third-party press
Peer companies
- Blackswan Space3 models
- CarbonSix2 models
- Embark Trucks2 models
- Gatik2 models
- General Intuition2 models
- Genesis AI2 models
Mentioned on (2)
Registry pages whose text names Eka Robotics.
People (2)
Financial state
- Total funding
- $161.0M
Each numeric field carries its own basis marker. Aggregators report a number; this surface preserves the source class so verification depth travels with the value.
Funding rounds (1)
- Series A2026-10-20
$150M · $1.4B post
Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) (lead), F-Prime Capital (lead), Obvious Ventures, E14 Fund, MFV Partners, Bison Ventures, Glasswing Ventures, Samsung Next
Timeline
Every recorded move in Eka Robotics’s history, most recent first: funding rounds, partnerships, acquisitions, supply-chain starts, key hires, and press.
Funding roundSeed funding round
2026-04-29Seed raising $11000000
Recent activity
Every change to this record is dated, sourced, and independently verified where marked.
- Record createdAug 4, 2026
Added to the verified registry
Sources (7)
- https://www.wired.com/story/when-robots-have-their-chatgpt-moment-remember-these-pincers/
- https://www.businessinsider.com/investors-to-know-in-robotics-and-physical-ai-2026-6
- https://app.dealroom.co/companies/eka_robotics
- https://ekarobotics.com/blog/eka-robotics-raises-150m-to-build-superhuman-intelligence-for-the-physical-world · 2026-10-20
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/20/eka-is-worth-1-45-billion-thanks-to-a-physical-ai-model-that-has-experts-raving/ · 2026-10-20
- https://a16z.com/announcement/investing-in-eka-robotics/ · 2026-10-20
- https://www.humanoidsdaily.com/news/eka-robotics-150-million-series-a-vision-force-action · 2026-10-20
Common questions
What is Eka Robotics?
What does Eka Robotics make?
Is Eka Robotics publicly traded?
Who competes with Eka Robotics?
Who is the CEO of Eka Robotics?
How can I invest in Eka Robotics?
How much funding has Eka Robotics raised?
Who owns Eka Robotics?
Where does Eka Robotics operate robots?
Is Eka Robotics a top robotics company?
When was Eka Robotics founded?
Is Eka Robotics safe?
Methodology: Verified · 7 sources (no primary) · last reviewed 2026-10-20
Verification posture
Verified
Low confidence
Review state
Stable
Last reviewed 2026-10-20
Sources by quality tier
- 5
- unclassified
- Unclassified source
- 2
- secondary-industry-publication
- Industry publication
The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.
Methodology surface for Eka Robotics.Peer companies
- Blackswan Space3 models
- CarbonSix2 models
- Embark Trucks2 models
- Gatik2 models
- General Intuition2 models
- Genesis AI2 models
In the press
Recent coverage mentioning Eka Robotics from third-party publications. Automatically surfaced; not part of the verified registry record.
Eka Robotics raises $150M to scale its vision-force-action model for robots
Eka Robotics is building a vision-force-action, or VFA, model to develop an intuition of physics through reinforcement learning at scale. The post Eka Robotics raises $150M to…
Startup Funding News Today, October 21, 2026: ASI, Baba, Pigment, Eka Robotics, Otter.ai & More
More than $1.34 billion in newly announced startup financing flowed into AI infrastructure, defense technology, robotics, enterprise software, and healthcare over the past 24…
Eka Robotics raises $150M at $1.45B valuation led by a16z and F-Prime for dexterous robots
A robot that screws in a light bulb, inserts wires, and handles 1,500 unfamiliar objects an hour is…
Eka Robotics Raises $150M Series A to Scale Vision-Force-Action Model for Dexterous Robots
Insider Brief Eka Robotics has raised $150 million in Series A funding to build robots that can handle unfamiliar objects and tasks without giving up the speed and accuracy…
Eka is worth $1.45B thanks to a physical AI model that has experts raving
Eka Robotics may be the first robotic arm that is actually good at picking up a wide range of objects, and it is so smooth and human-like, it is wowing the industry.
MFV Partners - Summer 2026 Update
Deep Tech from Day One!
The Robot in the Room: Why Dexterity — Not Price — Is the Real Barrier to Automating Construction and Prefab
Eka Robotics emerged from stealth in April 2026 with a Vision-Force-Action (VFA) model that teaches robots mass, friction, and force — the missing dexterity layer for real-world…
The Era of Eka: New Startup Unveils Vision-Force-Action Model to Crack Dexterity
Eka Robotics exits stealth with its VFA foundation model that treats force as the native language of robotics, targeting superhuman dexterity via simulation.
Pulkit Agrawal announces Eka Robotics VFA model launch on X
Co-founder Pulkit Agrawal publicly launches Eka Robotics, explaining the Vision-Force-Action model and the company approach to robotic dexterity via force-based learning.
I've Covered Robots for Years. This One Is Different
WIRED's Will Knight visits Eka Robotics' Cambridge HQ to see its VFA-powered robot perform delicate manipulation tasks like screwing in light bulbs.
Machine-readable surfaces
- Markdown mirror: /companies/eka-robotics.md
- RSS feed: /companies/eka-robotics/feed.xml
- JSON-LD: embedded in this page’s head
- REST API: /v1/companies/e3505269-e0d1-4d36-9a89-420514375b4f
- Revision history: /companies/eka-robotics/history
- Data documentation: /data
- Query this programmatically: Deploy MCP
Peer companies
- Blackswan Space3 models
- CarbonSix2 models
- Embark Trucks2 models
- Gatik2 models
- General Intuition2 models
- Genesis AI2 models
Video
Eka Robotics' robotic hand grabbed a raspberry at incredible speed, and WIRED is calling it the moment when robots became as transformative as ChatGPT.
Invited talk at ICRA 2026 Workshop on RL in the Era of IL (https://rl4il-icra.github.io/ ).
#podcast #startup #automation #humanoidrobots Thumbnail image shows Pulkit Agrawal, co-founder of Eka Robotics. Image source: Agrawal's website. Eka Robotics h
Martin Melioranski, Director of the 3D Lab at the Estonian Academy of Arts, shares how a collaboration with 5.0 ROBOTICS has empowered students and faculty with
EKA Partners With NuPort Robotics To Introduce ADAS In E-Buses || Hybiz tv EKA, an electric vehicles & technology company, and a subsidiary of Pinnacle Industr
Heat Index
Category contender75/100
A composite of competitive footprint, funding, press velocity, active partnerships, and supply-chain edges. Different from the Intelligence score below (which is per-form-factor productization). Non-robotics companies cap at 25.
Reality vs attention
Eka Robotics draws attention at the 79th percentile but verifies reality at the insufficient-data level among brain robots.
6-month trend
Analysis
Well-capitalized with $150M raised. Limited public visibility and press coverage relative to peers.
Signal flags
Dimension breakdown
Verified signal
Attention (reach, not merit)
DEPLOY Intelligence scores are computed from verified registry data: confirmed deployments, disclosed funding rounds, regulatory filings, active job listings, video viewership, and press coverage. Confidence ratings reflect data availability. Scores update nightly.
DEPLOY Indices — verified vs claimed
Last computed: Nov 3, 2026