RLWRLD raises $14.8M to build a foundational model for robotics

Summary

As robotics has advanced, industry has steadily adopted more robots to automate away many kinds of grunt work. More than 540,000 new industrial robots were installed worldwide in 2023, taking the number of total industrial robots active to above 4 million, per IFR. Industrial robots typically excel at repetitive tasks, but they find it challenging to perform precise tasks, handle delicate materials, and adjust to changing conditions — a robot in a restaurant’s kitchen would get in the way more than be helpful, for example. That is why many industrial processes are still manual. South Korean startup RLWRLD aims to solve this problem with a foundational AI model that it has built specifically for robotics by combining large language models with traditional robotics software. The company says this model will enable robots to make quick and agile movements and perform some amount of “logical reasoning” as well. “Using RLWRLD’s foundation model, processes that require a lot of manual work can be completely automated by learning and copying human expertise, making work environments more efficient,” Jung-Hee Ryu, founder and CEO of RLWRLD, said in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch. The startup is now coming out of stealth with 21 billion KRW (about $14.8 million) in seed funding. The round was led by venture capital firm Hashed, and Mirae Asset Venture Investment and Global Brain also invested. Notably, RLWRLD has attracted a long list of big strategic investors — Ana Group, PKSHA, Mitsui Chemical, Shimadzu and KDDI from Japan; LG Electronics and SK Telecom from Korea; and Amber Manufacturing from India. RLWRLD said the seed funding will be used to fund proof-of-concept projects with its strategic investors; secure computing infrastructure like GPUs, purchase robots, and devices to collect extensive data; and hire top research talent. The startup will also use the new money to develop advanced hand movements involving five-fingers — a capability that’s not yet been de...