Antioch co-founders Harry Mellsop, Alex Langshur, Colton Swingle, and Collin Schlager. Supply: Antioch
Safely validating synthetic intelligence to run bodily techniques in the actual world is likely one of the hardest challenges in autonomy, in response to Antioch Inc. The startup has raised pre-seed funding from buyers together with Shyam Sankar, chief know-how officer of Palantir Applied sciences Inc.
Stanford College graduates Harry Mellsop, Alex Langshur, Colton Swingle, and Collin Schlager co-founded Antioch early in 2025. The New York-based firm stated it’s constructing a simulation platform to allow robotics groups to construct, take a look at, and deploy autonomous techniques completely in software program.
Antioch builds infrastructure to democratize growth
Antioch’s said mission is to get rid of prolonged testing cycles that gradual robotics progress by giving builders entry to “Tesla-level infrastructure.”
“At Tesla, I noticed first-hand how the best simulation instruments allow you to develop and iterate exceptionally quick,” stated Mellsop, who beforehand labored on the Tesla Autopilot imaginative and prescient workforce. “We constructed Antioch to present each robotics firm that very same benefit — the flexibility to check and scale their robotics system on the pace of software program.”
Antioch’s different co-founders have complementary experiences. Swingle beforehand led a number of large-scale mannequin validation infrastructure initiatives at Google’s DeepMind unit, whereas Schlager performed a number one position in foundational analysis packages for Meta Actuality Labs’ just lately launched Neural Band wearable gadget.
Each oversaw the event of simulation and testing infrastructure for the validation of those merchandise, they usually stated they noticed firsthand the necessity to convey these capabilities to the broader market.
“At Meta, evaluating our {hardware} and fashions – significantly in a way consultant of real-world use – was essential to shifting quick and to offering an informative suggestions loop,” recalled Schlager. “Nevertheless, growing the platforms and tooling to hold out these evaluations required huge funding. With Antioch, we’re making this publicly accessible for the primary time, so groups can concentrate on perfecting their merchandise, and never constructing the analysis infrastructure round it.”
As a substitute of laboriously resetting a bodily machine that takes up power, house and cash each time it’s examined, Antioch is meant to permit builders to refine their robots with minimal overhead. Engineers can spin up hundreds of digital twins in parallel utilizing Antioch Cloud, combine with steady integration and deployment (CI/CD) workflows, and monitor efficiency metrics earlier than any {hardware} ever leaves the lab, claimed the startup.
“Proper now, the best way firms practice AI for robots is absurdly handbook, ” stated Mellsop. “We’ve talked to groups actually renting Airbnbs simply to allow them to take a look at their family robots in a single day or spending thousands and thousands constructing pretend warehouses and neighborhoods to simulate the actual world. It’s gradual, costly, and wildly inefficient. With Antioch, you are able to do all of that nearly.”
Founders apply expertise to nationwide wants
Market leaders within the autonomy house resembling Tesla, Anduril, and Waymo spend lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} a 12 months on end-to-end system analysis, stated Antioch. This creates a major market alternative, nevertheless it additionally places these instruments out of attain for smaller gamers and new entrants, it famous.
Mellsop and Langshur asserted that Antioch’s mission just isn’t solely about responding to the acute business want, nevertheless it additionally displays their dedication to constructing infrastructure that’s essential for nationwide safety however uncared for by present gamers.
The pair beforehand constructed Transpose, which they offered to the U.S. contractor Chainalysis in 2023. Transpose served intelligence and nationwide safety companies, regulation enforcement, regulators, and monetary establishments within the U.S. and overseas. It offered a safety and intelligence layer that helped authorities and the personal sector defend towards nation-state cyber threats.
“During the last 40 years, the manufacturing functionality that set the USA other than the remainder of the world has been systematically eroded by offshoring,” Langshur stated. “We see speedy re-industrialization as crucial from a nationwide safety perspective, and the one economically viable means to do that is thru augmenting our workforce with robotics and automation.”
“Environment friendly, scalable testing to make sure that robots deployed are secure and efficient is now the rate-limiting step in making this occur, which is why we determined that Antioch wanted to be constructed now,” he added.
Antioch integrates with present AI instruments
Antioch stated it has tightly built-in with the know-how of business leaders, together with instruments like Omniverse and Cosmos from NVIDIA and observability from AI robotics firm Foxglove.
The corporate stated it’s already working with many main robotics and autonomy firms, together with Fortune 500s, in verticals like development robotics, sensible safety techniques, and basis mannequin AI builders. It expects a full business launch in late 2025.
“We’ve taught AI to suppose,” Mellsop stated. “Now it’s time to show it to behave in the actual world safely, intelligently, and at scale.”
Traders hope to speed up robotics innovation
A* led Antioch’s pre-seed spherical, with participation from Summary Ventures, MaC Enterprise Capital, and Field Group. Different buyers included angels Adrian Macneil, the CEO of Foxglove; Palantir’s Sankar; and New Zealand agency Icehouse Ventures.
Antioch’s core know-how is an equalizer for firms to discover the following technology of robotics,” stated Bennett Siegel, co-founder and basic associate of A*.
“Antioch sits on the intersection of AI and robotics and can unlock the sci-fi future we’ve typically dreamed of,” he stated. “This platform removes the friction from physical-world testing and allows a brand new technology of embodied AI startups to scale their innovations globally. Firms are presently spending lots of of thousands and thousands a 12 months to have a horse within the AI robotics race, however know-how like Antioch’s can scale back the hurdles significantly, giving extra companies an opportunity to innovate.”
Antioch has raised $4.24 million, in response to Grishin Robotics. The startup is searching for a founding software program engineer. Different firms which have just lately raised thousands and thousands in funding for bodily and embodied AI growth embody Foxglove, Forterra, Bodily Intelligence, Flexion, and ROBOTERRA.
