← STARTUPSEMBODIED AI · BASELINE 2026-04-20

Skild AI

confidence: high · 3 watch questions · 8 evidence citations

01 TEAM & SIZE

Co-founded 2023 by Deepak Pathak (CEO, CMU RI asst prof, @pathak2206) and Abhinav Gupta (President, CMU RI prof, ex-Meta AI director). Both retain CMU faculty. Headcount ~50–61 (Tracxn Feb 2026: 61; PitchBook: 50). Offices: Pittsburgh HQ, San Mateo, Bengaluru (opened Feb 2026). Careers page shows "00" public openings on baseline date — stealthy, likely CMU/direct-outreach pipeline.

02 FUNDING & STAGE

Total raised ≈ $2.2B across three rounds:

  • Series A (Jul 2024): $300M @ $1.5B — led by Lightspeed + Coatue; Sequoia, SoftBank, Bezos Expeditions, Felicis, Amazon, CRV, Menlo, General Catalyst.
  • Series B (Jan 2025): $500M @ ~$4.5–4.7B — SoftBank-led; NVIDIA, LG, Samsung participated.
  • Series C (Jan 14, 2026): $1.4B @ $14B — SoftBank-led; NVentures (Nvidia VC), Bezos Expeditions, Macquarie, Disruptive, 1789 Capital. 2025 revenue: ~$30M (self-disclosed).

03 PRODUCT STATE

Skild Brain — "omni-bodied" general-purpose robot foundation model. Claims cross-embodiment control (quadrupeds, humanoids, tabletop arms, mobile manipulators) without per-robot retraining. Training data: human video + large-scale physics simulation. Three productized verticals as of Apr 2026: (1) Security/Inspection robot platform; (2) Mobile Manipulation platform w/ grasp/handover/nav APIs; (3) Autonomous Packing. Shipping into production: NVIDIA Blackwell assembly at Foxconn.

04 GTM MOTION

B2B2Robot — license the brain to OEMs + deploy into industrial customers. Mar 2026 alliance: ABB Robotics, Universal Robots (Teradyne), MiR, NVIDIA. Apr 15, 2026: acquired Zebra Technologies' robotics automation business (ex-Fetch Robotics) to own warehouse go-to-market. Verticals emphasized: warehousing, security/inspection, high-precision assembly.

05 CORE THESIS

Robotics data is the bottleneck, not hardware. A single unified policy trained on internet-scale human video + sim can generalize across embodiments, mirroring the LLM "one model, many tasks" pattern. Hardware-agnostic brain is the durable moat; robots become commodities.

06 PUBLIC SIGNALS INVENTORY

Blogskild.ai/blogs (9 posts since Jul 2024; cadence ~monthly in 2026). No public RSS link detected — unverified.
RSSskild.ai/blogs (9 posts since Jul 2024; cadence ~monthly in 2026). No public RSS link detected — unverified.
GitHubNo official org found — unverified (likely closed-source).
Twitter@SkildAI (company); Deepak Pathak @pathak2206; Abhinav Gupta — handle unverified.
LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/skildai; founders' personal pages active.
Careersskild.ai/career — 0 public listings on baseline date.
YouTubeChannel existence unverified on baseline date.
PressCBS News feature (Jul 2025); TechCrunch, Forbes, WSJ, The Robot Report, BusinessWire, technical.ly Pittsburgh regular coverage.

07 52-WEEK QUESTIONS

  1. Q1
    Does 2026 revenue cross $100M (3.3x from $30M) and ≥5 non-partner paying OEMs get named beyond NVIDIA/Foxconn/Zebra?
  2. Q2
    Does Skild Brain publish a benchmark / model card / demo showing zero-shot transfer across ≥3 untrained embodiments — or does "omni-bodied" stay marketing (technical.ly flagged SEC-vs-narrative gaps)?
  3. Q3
    Does the Zebra integration ship a warehouse product within 12 months, or does headcount balloon (>200) without new OEM partners — signaling forward-deployed services, not product leverage?

08 WEEKLY TIMELINE

0 signals

TIMELINE EMPTY · WEEK 0

Auto-feed fetcher ships Month 2. Manual diffs via Friday script start Week 2.

09 EVIDENCE

8 items · expand
  1. S-3-001
    Skild blog "Announcing Series C" (2026-01-14) — $1.4B/$14B confirmed
  2. S-3-002
    TechCrunch (2026-01-14) — Series C independent coverage
  3. S-3-003
    Skild blog "Skild acquires Zebra Robotics" (2026-04-15) — Zebra M&A
  4. S-3-004
    GlobeNewswire (2026-03-17) — ABB/UR/NVIDIA alliance
  5. S-3-005
    Lightspeed stories page — Series A leadership
  6. S-3-006
    Sequoia "Partnering with Skild" — founder thesis
  7. S-3-007
    Deepak Pathak CMU faculty page — co-founder verification
  8. S-3-008
    Tracxn Skild profile — headcount 61 (Mar 2026)

10 CONFIDENCE & UNKNOWNS

expand

High on funding, founders, product narrative, partnerships (multi-source, primary-confirmed). Medium on headcount (sources diverge 24/50/61). Unverified: RSS URL, GitHub org, YouTube channel, office headcount split, customer ARR breakdown, Gupta X handle. Careers page "0 openings" is anomalous post-$1.4B — flagged.

11 RELATED