# Collaborative Robotics **Source:** https://geo.sig.ai/brands/collaborative-robotics **Vertical:** Robotics **Subcategory:** General **Tier:** Emerging **Website:** co.bot **Last Updated:** 2026-04-14 ## Summary Santa Clara AI-native cobot with VLMs for cage-free human collaboration; $140M+ ($100M General Catalyst/Sequoia/Khosla Series B Apr 2024) from Amazon Robotics VP founder competing with Universal Robots for flexible manufacturing and logistics. ## Company Overview Collaborative Robotics (Cobot) is a Santa Clara, California-based AI-native collaborative robot company — backed with $140+ million in total funding including a $100 million Series B in April 2024 led by General Catalyst with Bison Ventures, Industry Ventures, Lux Capital, Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, and Mayo Clinic — providing manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare facilities with Proxie: the company's flagship collaborative robot that uses vision-language models (VLMs) and generative AI to adapt to real-world environments and work safely alongside humans without cages or extensive programming. Founded in 2022 by Brad Porter — former Vice President of Robotics at Amazon (where he built Amazon Robotics from 30 to 12,000+ robots) and former CTO of Scale AI — Collaborative Robotics is applying frontier AI to collaborative robotics with a team of robotics and AI researchers from Amazon, Google, and leading robotics programs. Proxie's AI-first architecture addresses the deployment friction that limits traditional industrial robot adoption: conventional industrial robots (ABB, FANUC, Yaskawa) are rigid, cage-isolated machines that require weeks of programming, specialized integration engineers, and structured environments where no part position varies — making them practical only for high-volume, perfectly standardized production lines. Collaborative robots (cobots) from Universal Robots and KUKA LBR iiwa removed the cage requirement but still demand careful joint-by-joint programming for each task. Proxie's vision-language model foundation (understanding tasks from natural language descriptions, using computer vision to locate objects in unstructured environments, and generalizing learned manipulation skills to novel items) enables deployment in days rather than weeks — and handles the product variety, bin picking variability, and human co-presence that traditional cobots require extensive safeguarding to manage. In 2025, Collaborative Robotics competes in the collaborative robot, industrial automation, and AI robotics market with Universal Robots (Teradyne subsidiary, NASDAQ: TER, cobot market leader, 100,000+ deployed), KUKA LBR iiwa (Midea/KUKA, collaborative robot line), and Physical Intelligence (AI robotics, $400M raised) for manufacturing facility, logistics center, and healthcare system collaborative automation adoption. General Catalyst's Series B leadership and Mayo Clinic's participation reflects both industrial automation and healthcare automation investment conviction. Brad Porter's Amazon Robotics track record (scaling to 12,000+ robots) provides enterprise automation deployment credibility. The 2025 strategy focuses on manufacturing and logistics warehouse task automation (bin picking, kitting, and assembly tasks too variable for traditional robots), expanding the healthcare facility material handling deployments (supply cart transport, linen handling, specimen delivery), and building the VLM-based generalization capability that enables Proxie to handle novel tasks from task descriptions alone. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Collaborative Robotics? Collaborative Robotics (Cobot) is a robotics company developing intelligent collaborative robots that work alongside humans in manufacturing, healthcare, and logistics. Founded by former Amazon robotics leader Brad Porter, the company uses AI to create more adaptable, intelligent robots. ### Who founded Collaborative Robotics? Collaborative Robotics was founded in 2022 by Brad Porter, who previously served as Vice President and Distinguished Engineer at Amazon, leading a 10,000-person team overseeing robotics for all of Amazon's logistics operations. He also served as CTO of Scale AI. ### What is Proxie? Proxie is Collaborative Robotics' flagship robot, described as the most intelligent collaborative robot on the market. It uses vision-language models and generative AI to adapt to real-world environments, enabling safe and effective human-robot collaboration. ### How much funding has Collaborative Robotics raised? Collaborative Robotics has raised over $140 million in less than two years, including a $100 million Series B round in April 2024 led by General Catalyst with participation from Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Mayo Clinic, and others. ### What makes Collaborative Robotics different? The company differentiates through its AI-first approach, using vision-language models and generative AI to create robots that can understand and adapt to their environment. This enables deployment without extensive programming and safe operation alongside humans. ### What industries does Collaborative Robotics target? Collaborative Robotics targets manufacturing, healthcare, and logistics industries - sectors where human-robot collaboration can improve productivity while keeping humans safe and in control. ### Where is Collaborative Robotics located? Collaborative Robotics is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with an additional office in Seattle, Washington. ### Who are Collaborative Robotics' investors? Major investors include General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, Bison Ventures, Industry Ventures, Mayo Clinic, Neo, 1984 Ventures, MVP Ventures, and Calibrate Ventures. ## Tags b2b, hardware, automation, manufacturing --- *Data from geo.sig.ai Brand Intelligence Database. Updated 2026-04-14.*