Rhoda AI raises $450 million to train robots using internet videos at $1.7 billion valuation

Rhoda AI Secures $450 Million Funding to Advance Robot Intelligence Platform

Rhoda AI has raised $450 million in Series A funding led by Premji Invest, valuing the Palo Alto-based startup at $1.7 billion as it emerges from stealth mode 1

1

. The round drew backing from prominent investors including Khosla Ventures, Singapore's state-owned investor Temasek, Mayfield, Capricorn Investment Group, and venture capitalist John Doerr 2

2

. This substantial investment positions the company to accelerate development and industrial deployment of its novel approach to AI robotics 5

5

.

Training Foundational Robotics Models to Learn from Internet Videos

Rhoda AI's distinctive approach centers on training its robot foundation model using hundreds of millions of publicly available internet videos rather than relying solely on traditional teleoperation methods 3

3

. Currently, AI models for robotics typically depend on data from teleoperation, where humans remotely control robot motion using specialized equipment like gloves and external sensors. This conventional method limits the amount of data available for robots to adapt to diverse real-world situations outside laboratory settings 1

1

.

CEO Jagdeep Singh, who previously founded solid-state battery maker QuantumScape Corp., explained the advantage: "In the case of teleoperation, if the phone orientation changes, that might be enough to cause the model to fail. Whereas in our case the model, it's seen so many other examples of objects that are at different orientations, it's able to generalize" 1

1

. The internet provides ready-made datasets showing millions of humans performing everyday tasks in natural environments, offering context, varied orientations, failure states, and edge cases that are difficult to reproduce even with synthetic data generation 3

3

.

FutureVision Platform Enables Predictive Control in Industrial Environments

The company unveiled FutureVision, its robot intelligence platform designed to handle the unpredictability of industrial environments 4

4

. FutureVision works by first studying internet videos to learn how objects move and how the physical world behaves. It then uses that knowledge to constantly anticipate what is about to happen around it and translate those predictions into physical movements through predictive control, repeating this cycle dozens of times per second 2

2

.

Rhoda calls its approach a Direct Video Action system, which enables robotic arms and other machines to deal with conditions that differ from what the AI model expects 1

1

. This addresses a longstanding problem in robotics: most machines perform well in controlled, predictable environments but struggle when something unexpected happens 4

4

. The platform is designed to integrate with a wide range of robotic hardware, allowing manufacturers and logistics operators to deploy intelligent robots without rebuilding existing systems 2

2

.

Automating Manufacturing and Logistics Through Physical AI

Rhoda AI works with industrial partners across manufacturing and logistics, targeting tasks that have traditionally been difficult to automate due to high variability 5

5

. The company has already run successful tests of its model using off-the-shelf parts in the factory of a leading automotive firm and plans to license FutureVision to companies running robotic hardware and software platforms 1

1

4

4

.

Jens Wiese, managing partner at Leitmotif, one of Rhoda's backers, noted: "What impressed us about Rhoda's approach is its ability to adapt to conditions that typically require human intervention. Technologies like this can dramatically expand the scope of what can be automated, playing a pivotal role in reindustrializing mature economies" 5

5

. Sandesh Patnam, managing partner at Premji Invest, sees potential for a robots-as-a-service business model where clients would rent both hardware and software, particularly important as the US attempts reshoring manufacturing 1

1

.

Building Humanoid Robots and Hardware for Real-World Deployment

Beyond licensing its AI model, Rhoda AI plans to manufacture its own hardware, including humanoid robots, to ensure quality for real-world work and collect data from deployed systems to further improve its models 1

1

3

3

. This positions the company in the intensifying race for humanoid robots led by Tesla, Figure AI, Unitree, Agility Robotics, and numerous Chinese startups 2

2

.

Vinod Khosla, who has invested in Singh's other companies, allowed Singh to incubate Rhoda AI inside Khosla Ventures and helped recruit co-founders. "The real world is messy, complex and being able to actually work on production lines is much, much harder than doing the demo," Khosla said, expressing confidence that Rhoda has the right technology to do real work 1

1

. Industry experts caution that reliability, safety certification, and cost will remain key hurdles for large-scale commercial deployment of general-purpose robots 2

2

, though breakthroughs in AI models combined with newer compact high-performance processors are expected to drive broader robotics adoption 4

4

. Rhoda joins other companies advancing Physical AI, where machines perceive, reason, and interact with 3D environments in real-time 3

3

.