RivianThe electric vehicle maker, known for its sleek, adventure-ready designs, is venturing into robotics. The Irvine, California-based company’s new spinoff, Mind Robotics, focuses on applying AI-powered robots to industrial settings. The spin-off entity has already raised $115 million in funding.
Mind Robotics was unveiled during Rivian’s third quarter earnings call yesterday (November 4). Rivian reported $1.5 billion in revenue for the July-September quarter, a 78 percent year-over-year increase due to increased sales ahead of the September expiration of federal EV tax credits. The company posted a net loss of $1.1 billion, better than analysts expected. It reiterated plans to launch its R2 SUV – a more affordable model priced at $45,000 – in 2026.
But Rivian’s ambitions now go beyond cars and software. “We believe there is synergy between the development of autonomous driving and physical AI,” the company wrote in its letter to shareholders. Rivian was tight-lipped about how Mind Robotics will leverage that synergy, saying only that the startup will “focus on advancing industrial AI to reshape how businesses work in the physical world and reshape Rivian operations data as the foundation for a robotics data flywheel.”
Mind Robotics’ $115 million seed round was led by EclipsePartner of VC firm Jiten Bahl The announcement was made in a LinkedIn post. Behl, a former Rivian executive, noted that Eclipse previously invested $105 million in ALSO, another Rivian spinoff launched earlier this year to streamline its technology into small, lightweight vehicles. Also debuted its first product line – an electric bike – in October
Rivian will remain independent from Mind Robotics but has a stake in the startup. CEO RJ ScaringeRivian, who also chairs Mind Robotics’ board, will be among the first to benefit from the company’s innovations. The startup emerged after Rivian took a long-term view of its manufacturing infrastructure and determined “the need to create products and robotic solutions that allow us to run and operate our manufacturing plants more efficiently,” he explained, to analysts.
While AI already underpins much of Rivian’s in-house software, Scaringe says Mind Robotics will give it a more physical role — helping with plant logistics and layout design, among other uses. “As much as we’ve seen AI shift how we operate and manage our businesses with broad applications for the LLM, the potential for AI to really change the way we think about operating in the real world is, in some ways, unimaginably large,” he said.
Rivian isn’t the first tech player to foray into AI and robotics. Rival EV makers Tesla The future of self-driving vehicles and its upcoming Optimus humanoid robot is largely at stake, while the chipmaker Nvidia Likewise betting that the next wave of technology will center on physical AI systems.
Overall robotics investment across Silicon Valley has picked up in recent months. As of September, Funding in the sector has exceeded $8.5 billionThat surpassed $7.5 billion last year and puts the industry on pace for its biggest year since 2021, according to Crunchbase data.
