- Standard Bots has raised $200M in a Series C co-led by General Catalyst and RoboStrategy at a $1 billion valuation, as demand for AI-native industrial robots surges across American manufacturing.
- The company plans to expand its Glen Cove, New York, manufacturing facility to 70,000 square feet to scale production of American-made robots.
- Standard Bots aims to deliver 10% of all new US industrial robot deployments by next year as China widens its automation lead.
America’s manufacturing revival may depend less on reshoring and more on robotics. While policymakers push to bring industrial production back to the United States, manufacturers face a growing challenge: they cannot compete globally without automation. China installed nine times as many industrial robots as the US last year, more than the rest of the world combined, according to recent reports.
Standard Bots believes artificial intelligence can help close the gap.
The New York-based robotics company has raised $200 million in a Series C co-led by General Catalyst and RoboStrategy, a publicly traded closed-end fund focused on robotics and physical AI. The round values Standard Bots at $1 billion.
Making industrial robots as easy to teach as people
Standard Bots was founded in 2011 by Evan Beard who previously co-founded A Plus and Gridtech, with David Golden joining as co-founder in 2020. Golden previously co-founded Bowery Farming, which raised $473 million from Fidelity, GV, and General Catalyst to become the largest vertical farming company in the US, and LeapPay, a real-time data platform for small business lending, was sold to Funding Circle in 2014.
The company was built around a simple observation: most industrial robots remain too difficult, expensive, and specialised for most manufacturers. Traditional robots require skilled programmers, lengthy deployment cycles, and significant integration costs.
Standard Bots takes a different approach. Its AI-native robot arms learn through demonstration rather than code. Operators show the robot how to perform a task; Flux AI Skill records and replicates the routine. No programming required.
The robots are deployed across machining, welding, palletising, grinding, fastening, assembly, and inspection at roughly 30% lower cost than many legacy providers. Customers include Amazon, Lockheed Martin, NASA, the US Army, and Sunoco, as well as hundreds of small and medium-sized manufacturers.
“AI-native robots are the essential power tool of the 21st century. AI will enable industrial robots to perform dramatically more tasks autonomously, and real-world deployments are critical for gathering the data that makes them better,” says Beard.
The company’s vertically integrated model goes further than most competitors. Standard Bots designs its own actuators, assembles products in-house, and plans to manufacture nearly every component domestically by 2027.
Competition
Standard Bots enters a market receiving extraordinary capital. Figure AI raised over $1 billion at a $39 billion valuation in September 2025, developing humanoid robots for industrial and commercial environments. Physical Intelligence raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion valuation to build foundation models that give robots generalised physical intelligence. Covariant, acquired by Amazon after raising more than $220 million, built AI systems for manipulating warehouse robots.
What differentiates Standard Bots from these well-funded competitors is its focus on industrial arm deployment today, at a price point accessible to small and medium manufacturers, rather than future humanoid prototypes or foundation model research. Its robots are already in production across American factory floors. Its competitors are largely still scaling to deployment.
What’s next?
Standard Bots has become one of the most visible advocates for rebuilding American robotics capability, with Beard advising the White House and speaking before the Congressional Joint Economic Committee on frontier technologies and industrial efficiency.
The $200 million will fund the expansion of the Glen Cove manufacturing facility to 70,000 square feet and accelerate the company’s progress toward its target of delivering 10% of all new US industrial robot deployments within the year.
The harder question is whether a 122-person company can scale to that target at a moment when China is installing robots faster than any country in history, and when the domestic suppliers it competes against are backed by decades of manufacturing infrastructure that Standard Bots is still building.
