Key Takeaways
- • Tutor Intelligence, a Watertown, Massachusetts robotics research and deployment company, raised a $75 million Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz, bringing its total capital raised to $117 million.
- • Union Square Ventures, which led the Series A, and Neo, which led the seed round, also participated in the round.
- • Proceeds will fund frontier robot foundation model training and the manufacturing and deployment of Tutor's robots, Sonny and Cassie, across the United States.
- • Tutor sells robot work on an hourly or per-pick basis with no upfront purchase or long-term contract, per the company.
- • The company says its robots are working in almost four times as many facilities as a year ago and is on track to have more than 1,000 robots under contract by the end of 2027.
Summary
Tutor Intelligence, a robotics research and deployment company based in Watertown, Massachusetts, announced a $75 million Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz, according to a Business Wire release. The round brings the company's total capital raised to $117 million. Union Square Ventures and Neo, which led the Series A and seed rounds respectively, also participated.
The company says the capital will support training of its frontier robot foundation model and the manufacturing and deployment of Sonny and Cassie, its robot workers. Tutor deploys internet-connected robots into production environments, where they perform work for customers with input from remote operators it calls "tutors." The company argues that data generated by these real-world deployments addresses a gap in robotics training, since the physical world lacks the large record of text and images that has trained conversational and coding AI. Each deployment, in Tutor's framing, feeds models that expand the range of work robots can perform.
Raghu Raghuram, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and former CEO of VMware, said Tutor's approach starts with real-world deployment requirements and works backward through distribution, hardware and research. Josh Gruenstein, co-founder and CEO of Tutor, said the company's models enable robots to perform jobs they previously could not and argued that the technology lowers robot costs.
Tutor sells robot work by the hour or by the pick, with no upfront purchase or long-term contract, and handles deployment and maintenance. The company reports that its robots are now in almost four times as many facilities as a year earlier and that nearly a third of organizations that received Tutor robots in the past 12 months were existing customers adding units. Its robots currently operate in large U.S. manufacturing and logistics networks, handling consumer goods such as cereals, snacks, cosmetics and toys. The company is on track for more than 1,000 robots under contract by the end of 2027, all built and deployed in the United States. The figures are company-reported and have not been independently verified.
The company says the capital will support training of its frontier robot foundation model and the manufacturing and deployment of Sonny and Cassie, its robot workers. Tutor deploys internet-connected robots into production environments, where they perform work for customers with input from remote operators it calls "tutors." The company argues that data generated by these real-world deployments addresses a gap in robotics training, since the physical world lacks the large record of text and images that has trained conversational and coding AI. Each deployment, in Tutor's framing, feeds models that expand the range of work robots can perform.
Raghu Raghuram, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and former CEO of VMware, said Tutor's approach starts with real-world deployment requirements and works backward through distribution, hardware and research. Josh Gruenstein, co-founder and CEO of Tutor, said the company's models enable robots to perform jobs they previously could not and argued that the technology lowers robot costs.
Tutor sells robot work by the hour or by the pick, with no upfront purchase or long-term contract, and handles deployment and maintenance. The company reports that its robots are now in almost four times as many facilities as a year earlier and that nearly a third of organizations that received Tutor robots in the past 12 months were existing customers adding units. Its robots currently operate in large U.S. manufacturing and logistics networks, handling consumer goods such as cereals, snacks, cosmetics and toys. The company is on track for more than 1,000 robots under contract by the end of 2027, all built and deployed in the United States. The figures are company-reported and have not been independently verified.
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