Walden Robotics, a robotics company spun out of the Toyota Research Institute, came out of stealth on 15 July 2026 with a $300m seed round that valued it at $1.1bn. Toyota and Deviation Capital co-led the round. Toyota's participation came through Toyota Motor Corporation, Toyota Invention Partners and Toyota Ventures, according to the company's press release.
Other investors named in the release were NVIDIA, Boeing, AE Ventures, Samsung Ventures, Prologis Ventures, CoreWeave Ventures, Calibrate Ventures, Colle Capital, Shine Capital, NextView Ventures, Squarepoint Capital, One Madison Group, KAS Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures.
The company, which gave its location as Cambridge, Massachusetts, did not say how it would spend the money or how many people it employs. Its website says it is hiring broadly.
“The best way to make fast and positive progress is by working closely together with the real experts.”Russ Tedrake, Co-Founder and CEO, Walden Robotics
What Walden Robotics does
Walden builds general-purpose robots for manufacturing and logistics, and develops its own hardware, software and AI. Its robots run on Large Behavior Models, which the company says let them learn new tasks and improve through practice in real settings.
The robots pair a humanoid upper body with a wheeled base rather than legs. Co-founder and chief executive Russ Tedrake told The Next Web that wheels were safer and more practical, because the robots can slow down and stop around people more easily, which fits existing factory safety rules. Wheels also leave room for larger batteries and more onboard computing, the publication reported.
The company's website lists machine tending, tool setting, parts kitting and assembly as tasks its robots perform today. Walden said it has strategic partners in automotive, aerospace, semiconductors, electronics, logistics and life sciences.
Already working at Toyota
Since February, Walden's robots have done production work at a Toyota manufacturing plant in North America, the company said, moving from a first pilot to real work in under two months. According to The Next Web, one robot works eight-hour shifts alongside human teams, loading and unloading car parts, cleaning machinery and kitting parts for assembly.
Tedrake told The Next Web that interest in the field was high and the technology felt ready, but that success was not assured, and that a company had to think through the business case and the unit economics. He said in the release that serving customers required a deep understanding of how manufacturing is done today.
Who is behind it
Tedrake is a professor at MIT and was previously senior vice president of Large Behavior Models at the Toyota Research Institute. The release said Walden was founded by robotics and AI researchers from the Toyota Research Institute, MIT, Stanford and Amazon, and that the company launched out of the institute in January 2026. It did not name the other co-founders.
Toyota's chief technology officer, Hiroki Nakajima, said in the release that Walden's distinguishing feature was its ability to deliver robots that are useful from the first day. Colin Beirne, founding partner of Deviation Capital, called the team generational. Samsung SDS is listed on Walden's website as a partner for high-precision manufacturing.
The seed round is the only funding Walden has announced.
Company website: waldenrobotics.com