Viam Raises $30M to Scale Robotics Creation Platform

February 1, 2022

Viam, a robotics startup developing a new robotics platform, has announced raising $30 million in a Series A round. The funding was led by Tiger Global, with participation from returning investors Union Square Ventures and Battery Ventures. The new funding raises Viam’s total financing to $42 million.

Founded in 2020 by MongoDB co-founder and longtime CTO Eliot Horowitz, Viam develops a hardware- and language-agnostic platform that lets developers create, configure and control any robot from anywhere. The company said robotics will struggle to mature quickly without developer-friendly tools and services to drive innovation.

“Since our seed round, we’ve brought on extraordinary talent, built, tested and launched our platform, and engaged with external parties energized by the prospect of building robots easily and intuitively,” said Horowitz. The company said it is working with a growing and curated set of partners in a private alpha, and is preparing for a public launch later this year. The platform relies on standardized building blocks rather than custom code to create, configure, and control robots. The company said the goal is to empower engineers across industries to solve complicated automation problems with developer-friendly software tools.

“Structural shortages in the labor market are driving explosive demand for robotics and automation,” said Griffin Schroeder, a partner at Tiger Global. “We are excited to support Eliot and the Viam team in their audacious endeavor to rebuild – from scratch – the platform underlying the modern robotics industry, and enable the next generation of problem solvers.”

For more details and to sign up for updates from the company, visit the VIam website here.