RoboForce, a developer of Physical AI robots for industrial environments, announced a $52 million oversubscribed funding round on March 17, 2026. YZi Labs led the round, with participation from Jerry Yang. The funding brings RoboForce’s total raised to $67 million. Existing investors Myron Scholes, Gary Rieschel, and Carnegie Mellon University also participated.
RoboForce builds Physical AI to power Robo-Labor, which refers to scalable robots designed for physically demanding, repetitive, and safety-critical tasks in industrial settings.
Funding Overview
RoboForce secured $52 million in an oversubscribed funding round led by YZi Labs, with participation from Jerry Yang. The raise builds on support from existing investors, bringing the company’s total funding to $67 million.
The capital supports three areas:
- Development of a robot foundation model and AI data flywheel using real-world fleet data and simulation.
- Scaling manufacturing of Physical AI robots for harsh environments.
- Commercialization of pilot programs into production deployments.
RoboForce collaborates with NVIDIA on its robotics stack. NVIDIA provides Jetson Thor for edge computing, Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab for simulation and learning, Cosmos for synthetic data, and OSMO for orchestration.
About the Company
RoboForce develops Physical AI foundation models and robotics for industrial Robo-Labor. The company targets dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks in sectors including utility-scale solar, data centers, mining, shipping, manufacturing, and logistics.
Leo Ma serves as founder and CEO of RoboForce. Ma stated: “Robo-Labor is essential for work that is dull, dirty, and dangerous. This problem centers on human workers’ availability, cost, and safety, and its impact spans across most critical industrial sectors. Our mission is to elevate humans into safer, higher value roles while robots take on the most demanding industrial tasks.”
RoboForce was founded in 2023. Its team includes experts from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), University of Michigan (UMich), Amazon Robotics, Google, Waymo, Cruise, Tesla Robotics, ABB, and Apple.
Investors
YZi Labs led the $52 million funding round and manages a $10 billion investment fund. The round also saw participation from Jerry Yang, co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc.
Existing investors include:
- Myron Scholes, Nobel Laureate economist.
- Gary Rieschel, founding partner of Qiming Ventures.
- Carnegie Mellon University.
Market Context
Industrial operators face labor shortages for physically demanding, repetitive, and safety-critical work. Human labor shortages slow project timelines and raise safety risks. RoboForce’s Physical AI robots address these issues in demanding environments such as utility-scale solar, data centers, mining, shipping, manufacturing, and logistics.
The company integrates real-world data and high-fidelity simulation into a closed-loop AI system. This approach compounds intelligence across deployments. NVIDIA technologies form the backbone, enabling policy learning and scalable operations in complex settings.
This funding round reflects a broader surge in investment across next-generation infrastructure and automation technologies. Recent developments in adjacent sectors highlight this momentum, including Ironlight Group Raises $21M to expand its tokenized securities infrastructure, signaling continued investor confidence in both AI-driven industrial solutions and blockchain-based financial systems.
Funding History
RoboForce has raised a total of $67 million across rounds. The latest $52 million oversubscribed round brings the cumulative total to this figure. Prior funding amounted to $15 million from existing investors including Myron Scholes, Gary Rieschel, and Carnegie Mellon University. Specific details on earlier rounds remain undisclosed in available information.
