Physical AI startup Mowito has raised $3 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Version One Ventures, with participation from All In Capital, Unisol, iSeed, and several angel investors, including Soumith Chintala (Thinking Machines Lab), Adarsh Kulkarni (Foundry Robotics), Ashish Kulkarni (Coformer.ai), and Vaibhav Domkundwar (Better Capital).
The startup said the fresh capital will be used to expand its operations in the United States, strengthen its engineering and go-to-market teams, and scale deployments across automotive and electronics manufacturers.
Founded in 2024 by Puru Rastogi, Adityanag Nagesh, and Safar V, Mowito is building Physical AI foundation models that enable industrial robot arms to learn tasks by observing demonstrations instead of relying on traditional programming.
Industrial robots have been widely used in manufacturing for decades, but programming them for new tasks often takes days and must be repeated whenever products or production processes change. Mowito aims to simplify this by allowing robots to learn directly from demonstrations—sometimes after just a single demonstration—eliminating the need for complex programming while maintaining the precision required for industrial operations.
Unlike conventional automation systems, Mowito’s AI models run on existing industrial robot arms without requiring any hardware modifications. Operators can teach robots new tasks directly on the factory floor, helping manufacturers reduce deployment time and improve production flexibility.
Commenting on the funding, Puru Rastogi, Co-founder and CEO of Mowito, said manufacturing has reached a stage where software, rather than hardware, is the biggest challenge. He added that robots should be able to learn by observing and repeating tasks, just as humans do, instead of being reprogrammed every time production requirements change.
The company’s technology is already being used in live production environments. According to Mowito, its AI-powered robots are currently operating on manufacturing lines at a Fortune 500 automotive company and at one of the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturers, supporting high-precision assembly applications across the automotive and consumer electronics industries.
Kushal Bhagia, Partner at All In Capital, said AI is expected to transform industrial automation by removing one of the biggest barriers to robotics—the complexity of programming. He noted that Mowito’s technical expertise, early customer validation, and long-term vision position the company to become a key player in the Physical AI space.
The company currently operates from Bengaluru and Detroit, serving customers in the automotive and electronics sectors. With the latest funding, Mowito plans to deepen its presence in North America while continuing to develop its Physical AI platform for global manufacturers.
As manufacturers increasingly look for flexible, AI-powered automation solutions, Physical AI is emerging as one of the fastest-growing segments within industrial technology. Mowito aims to address this demand by making industrial robots easier to deploy and adapt without changing existing hardware infrastructure.
-By Shivani Solanki
