Key Takeaways
- • Tutor Intelligence raised a $75 million Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz, bringing its total capital raised to $117 million, according to a company press release distributed via Business Wire.
- • Union Square Ventures, which led the Series A, and Neo, which led the seed round, also participated in the financing.
- • Proceeds will fund frontier robot foundation model training and the manufacturing and deployment of its robot workers, Sonny and Cassie, all built and deployed in the United States.
- • Tutor says its robots now operate 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 end-2027.
- • Tutor sells robot work on an hourly or per-pick basis with no upfront purchase or long-term contract, and nearly a third of recent robot recipients were existing customers.
Summary
Tutor Intelligence, a robotics research and deployment company based in Watertown, Massachusetts and founded out of MIT CSAIL, announced a $75 million Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), according to the company's press release. The round brings Tutor's total capital raised to $117 million. Union Square Ventures, which led the Series A, and Neo, which led the seed round, also participated.
The funding will support training of Tutor's frontier robot foundation models and the manufacturing and deployment of Sonny and Cassie, the company's robot workers. Tutor's robots are deployed into production environments, where they perform real work for customers with input from remote operators the company calls "tutors." The company argues that the data generated by each task addresses a gap in real-world training data, which it says feeds back into better models and broader deployment. Raghu Raghuram, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and former CEO of VMware, said Tutor's approach starts with real-world deployment demands and works backward through distribution, hardware and research.
According to the release, Tutor's robots are working in almost four times as many facilities as a year ago. The company expects more than 1,000 robots under contract by the end of 2027, all built in and deployed from the United States. Current deployments include large manufacturing and logistics networks handling consumer goods such as breakfast cereals, snacks, candy, cosmetics, home goods and toys.
Tutor sells robot work on a per-hour or per-pick basis, with no upfront purchase or long-term contract. The company handles deployment and maintenance and provides regular software and model upgrades. The release states that nearly a third of organizations that received Tutor robots in the past 12 months were existing customers installing additional units. Co-founder and CEO Josh Gruenstein said the company's models allow robots to perform jobs they have not previously handled and make robots more affordable, adding that "we can hardly build robots fast enough."
The funding will support training of Tutor's frontier robot foundation models and the manufacturing and deployment of Sonny and Cassie, the company's robot workers. Tutor's robots are deployed into production environments, where they perform real work for customers with input from remote operators the company calls "tutors." The company argues that the data generated by each task addresses a gap in real-world training data, which it says feeds back into better models and broader deployment. Raghu Raghuram, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and former CEO of VMware, said Tutor's approach starts with real-world deployment demands and works backward through distribution, hardware and research.
According to the release, Tutor's robots are working in almost four times as many facilities as a year ago. The company expects more than 1,000 robots under contract by the end of 2027, all built in and deployed from the United States. Current deployments include large manufacturing and logistics networks handling consumer goods such as breakfast cereals, snacks, candy, cosmetics, home goods and toys.
Tutor sells robot work on a per-hour or per-pick basis, with no upfront purchase or long-term contract. The company handles deployment and maintenance and provides regular software and model upgrades. The release states that nearly a third of organizations that received Tutor robots in the past 12 months were existing customers installing additional units. Co-founder and CEO Josh Gruenstein said the company's models allow robots to perform jobs they have not previously handled and make robots more affordable, adding that "we can hardly build robots fast enough."
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