Robotics startups are courting university researchers. Microagi just hired eight.
Georgia Tech professor Animesh Garg is joining German robotics startup Microagi with seven members of his research group.
Robotics startups are increasingly recruiting university researchers as the physical AI boom continues. Microagi, a German company, recently hired Animesh Garg, a Georgia Tech robotics professor, as chief research officer. Garg will lead the development of post-training, specialized robotics models that can perform specific tasks.
He is bringing seven members of his research group with him, acquired through Microagi's acquisition of a stealth startup they had been building. Microagi raised $55 million in the largest seed round by a German startup this summer. The company works with manufacturers in various industries to train robots for factory jobs by collecting data from workers and adapting general-purpose robotics models to each customer's operations.
The surge in robotics investment is driven by advances in AI, falling hardware costs, labor shortages, and the need to automate and reshore manufacturing. Other notable robotics startups include Skild AI and Physical Intelligence, founded by Carnegie Mellon professors and Stanford and UC Berkeley professors, respectively.
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