Rivian created its second spinoff company this year: an industrial artificial intelligence and robotics business called Mind Robotics.
The new effort will focus on using “industrial artificial intelligence to reshape how real-world businesses operate and leverage Rivian’s operations data as the foundation for a robotics data flywheel,” according to the company’s third-quarter shareholder letter published Tuesday.
That’s a buzzword, and Rivian declined to elaborate beyond that explanation. In an investor call Tuesday, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said his company realized it had an opportunity to “develop products and robotic solutions that allow us to operate and operate our manufacturing plants more efficiently.” Scaringe will serve as chairman of Mind Robotics’ board, according to a archivingand Rivian is a shareholder, he said on the call.
“As much as we’ve seen AI change the way we operate and run our businesses through the broad applications for LLMs, the potential for AI to really change the way we think about operating in the natural world is, in some ways, unimaginably great,” Scaringe said on the call. “So creating this company is ultimately the culmination of coming to the view that we wanted to have direct control and direct influence on the design and development of advanced robotic AI that would be very focused on industrial applications.”
Mind Robotics has already raised a $115 million seed round led by VC firm Eclipse. Jiten Behl, a partner at Eclipse who also worked at Rivian, revealed this investment in a LinkedIn post after TechCrunch previously reported the company’s involvement in an earlier version of this story.
The launch of Mind Robotics marks the second time this year that Rivian has created a new standalone company. In March, the company spun off its skunkworks micromobility division into a startup called Also Inc. This new company was funded in part by money from Eclipse, with additional funding from Greenoaks Capital.
It is unclear whether Rivian employees are moving to Mind Robotics, as was the case with Also. A Rivian spokesman declined to say. But the company hinted at the possibility in Tuesday’s letter.
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“With our strong technology talent and innovation-driven culture, we have been able to identify additional areas of value to accelerate our mission at scale while maintaining Rivian’s focus,” Scaringe wrote.
Robotics and industrial artificial intelligence are hot areas for investment right now. There are many humanoid robotics companies raising money and trying to ship products, including Tesla. General Motors works alone robotics and artificial intelligence departmentalso.
Beyond Rivian’s announcement on Tuesday, however, very little is known about what Mind Robotics will do. There is essentially no digital footprint for the company yet, aside from the trademark application. That application is broadly targeted and says Mind Robotics could use the trademark for everything from machinery to vehicles to “egg incubators.”
This story has been updated with new information from a regulatory filing in the third paragraph, LinkedIn’s publication in the fifth paragraph, and from the investor call throughout.
