Gradient-Backed Feather Robotics Raises $7.6M for Developer Humanoids
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Feather Robotics has raised $7.6 million in a pre-seed round led by Gradient Ventures, which backed the company from its inception. The startup is building what its founders hope will become the Android of robotics.
Feather is based in East Palo Alto, California. Founded in 2025, the humanoid robotics company takes a different path from Tesla or Figure, which are trying to build both the robot body and a general-purpose foundational brain. Feather instead supplies the hardware and software toolkit that developers can use to tackle practical tasks today.
Co-founder Hoa Mai started the company after his previous humanoid startup was sold to 1X. He teamed up with Parsa Bakhtiari, a former Tesla Model 3 engineer who at one point reported directly to Elon Musk.
Since the round, Feather has rolled out a modular system that lets developers adjust the hardware for different uses, such as changing arm lengths. It is already selling robots and has passed $1 million in revenue. Feather is not naming customers, but it says its robots are working as cooks in restaurants and cleaning up science labs. On the software side, the machines can run models from leading robotics AI providers including Nvidia, Skild and Physical Intelligence.
Price is a big part of the pitch. Feather’s robot costs $30,000, roughly half the price of Unitree’s H2 Edu, and with new foreign-made models restricted from entering the U.S. market, the company sees itself as a homegrown alternative. Gradient general partner Darian Shirazi views Feather as the only U.S. startup building a modular humanoid platform, and he says the team has spent only a fraction of its pre-seed money so far.
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