Tera AI, a robotics startup, has emerged from stealth mode. Securing $7.8 million in seed funding to develop a breakthrough solution for autonomous robot navigation. The company’s innovative software, dubbed “zero-shot navigation,” promises to provide affordable visual navigation for robots. Addressing one of the biggest challenges in robotics today.
Traditional robots rely on complex hardware systems, including sensors and built-in software tailored for specific tasks like motion estimation. These systems can be expensive, difficult to integrate, and limited in their applications. Additionally, robots are often unable to move seamlessly across different locations or handle new environments. While AI-powered self-driving systems are making progress, only a small fraction use AI for navigation.
Tera AI, however, aims to change that by building a spatial reasoning AI system that works with any robot equipped with a camera and GPU. The company takes a software-first, platform-agnostic approach, offering a solution that works via an over-the-air update. This cognition-inspired technology applies in real time to new scenarios, much like large language models process information.
Tony Zhang, a former Google X leader, founded Tera AI in 2023 to solve general-purpose navigation challenges with software. The team includes researchers from Google AI, MIT, Caltech, and the European Space Agency. The company’s novel approach to spatial reasoning AI allows robots to navigate, interact with objects, and understand 3D space, potentially reducing hardware costs and implementation time.
Zhang envisions a future where robots of all sizes, from small models to large autonomous vehicles, can operate without needing expensive sensors like lidar or high-precision GPS. The startup’s solution offers a scalable, affordable alternative, making autonomous robots more accessible to a broader range of industries.
The new funding will enable Tera to expand its team and deploy its software on embedded devices this year. With its innovative approach, Tera AI aims to be at the forefront of the next wave of robotics, allowing robots to easily gain new capabilities through software updates, much like downloading apps from an app store.
Tera’s investors include Felicis, Inovia, Caltech, Wilson Hill, and entrepreneur-investor Naval Ravikant.
