Tangent Robotics, a New York City startup spun out of Columbia University, has announced a US$4.5 million Pre-Seed funding round to advance fine motor skills for robot dexterity. Fly Ventures and Toyota Ventures led the round, with participation from Logos Fund and Sparked Ventures. The company will use the capital to develop skilled robotic manipulation capabilities and deploy them in demanding manufacturing environments.
Closing a Critical Gap in Robotic Manipulation
Fine motor skills are difficult to learn and remain underexplored in robotics, even though they are essential for delicate and intricate manipulation tasks. The company sees this as a layer that is currently missing from robotic systems but omnipresent in real world economic activity. Tasks such as assembly, threading, connector mating, gasket seating, snap fitting, and gear meshing all require a level of fine motor skill that today's robots do not possess.
A Different Approach to Robot Hands
Tangent Robotics has developed precise light-based touch sensors for robot fingers and hands that can track human fingertips with high fidelity. These components are combined with new data collection and machine learning methods to enable autonomous dexterity. While other components such as Vision-Language-Action models can provide abstract, semantic intelligence, Tangent Robotics designs its hands for the delicate physical execution that these models cannot perform.
Academic Origins and Technical Momentum
The company was spun out of Columbia Engineering's Robotic Manipulation and Mobility Lab, where the founding team introduced the DISCO robot finger and designed hands for NASA's Assistive Free Flyer robots on the International Space Station. The team also built the first robot hand capable of in-hand dexterity in the dark, which was named one of Time Magazine's Best Inventions of 2023. Co-founder Matei Ciocarlie previously co-led the manipulation team at Willow Garage, the robotics hub where the Robot Operating System was first developed.
Targeting High-Value Manufacturing Work
Tangent Robotics plans to focus on manufacturing tasks that require precise and delicate manipulation, including unstructured part sequencing, exacting assemblies, installation, maintenance, disassembly, inspection, reassembly, and wiring of electrical or mechanical equipment. These activities are common in industrial settings but remain difficult for conventional grippers and suction cups. The company also aims to reduce the practice time needed for robots to learn these skills from days to hours.
Investor Perspectives on Industrial Dexterity
Fly Ventures Partner Matt Wichrowski noted that grippers and suction cups are effective in less delicate applications but incompatible with a significant portion of economic activity. Toyota Ventures Partner David Sokolic said Tangent Robotics flips the script on traditional manipulation by engineering compliance primarily into the sensor stack rather than relying solely on mechanics. Both investors described the company's work as a pragmatic, hardware-first effort to unlock a massive bottleneck in industrial assembly.
A Strategy Informed by Nature, Not Bound by It
Co-founder Matei Ciocarlie argues that copying the human hand is a mistake, similar to building flying machines with flapping wings. Instead, the company builds robot hands that can achieve dexterity even with non-human-like components and articulation. This design philosophy allows Tangent Robotics to pursue practical dexterity without being constrained by biological limitations.
With the new capital, Tangent Robotics is positioned to accelerate development of its dexterous robot hands for high-precision industrial work. The company's approach aims to make fine motor skills practical for automation and to close a critical gap in physical AI. By focusing on the fine motor skill layer rather than human-like form, Tangent Robotics is pursuing a focused path toward more capable and useful robots.