mimic, a Zurich-based physical AI and robotics company, has raised $16 million in new funding to accelerate the development and deployment of its frontier AI models and humanoid robotic hands. The seed round was led by Elaia and Speedinvest, with participation from Founderful, 1st kind, 10X Founders, 2100 Ventures, and the Sequoia Scout Fund. The new capital brings the company’s total funding to over $20 million and will support the expansion of pilot deployments with leading industrial organizations worldwide.
mimic focuses on enabling robots to perform intricate manual tasks that have traditionally required human dexterity. Across sectors, including manufacturing, logistics, and assembly, these tasks remain difficult to automate due to the limitations of conventional robotics systems. The company’s approach combines advanced physical AI models with dexterous robotic hands and standard industrial robot arms, offering flexibility and rapid deployment for scenarios that previously demanded human skill.
Rather than relying on pre-programmed actions, mimic trains its AI models through real-world human demonstration. Skilled operators wear the company’s proprietary data capture devices during their daily work, allowing mimic to collect live motion data in factory environments without interrupting production. This data is used to develop imitation-learning-based AI models that enable robots to adapt to changing environments, self-correct, and handle diverse objects with precision.
The market for general-purpose and dexterous robotics is positioned for expansion as global labor shortages, supply chain shifts, and industrial reshoring intensify the need for automation. Analysts estimate that the humanoid and dexterous robotics segment could reach $38 billion by 2035, within a broader robotics market projected to grow to between $200 billion and $1 trillion by 2040.
mimic was founded in 2024 as a spin-off from ETH Zurich and has already begun piloting its technology with Fortune 500 manufacturers and global automotive companies. The company has also partnered with major logistics providers, signaling growing demand across labor-intensive sectors. Over the past year, mimic has secured innovation funding from the Swiss federal innovation agency and participated in the AWS Generative AI Accelerator program. The company’s team includes engineers and researchers with expertise across robotics, AI, and scalable systems.
KEY QUOTES:
“Humanoids are exciting, but there aren’t many industrial scenarios where the full-body form factor truly adds value. Our approach pairs AI-driven dexterous robotic hands with proven, off-the-shelf robot arms to deliver the same capabilities in a way that is much simpler, more reliable and rapidly deployable.”
Stephan-Daniel Gravert, Co-Founder and CPO, mimic
“Our general purpose AI models allow us to automate manual labour in a way that simply was not possible before. Thanks to our unique focus on human-like dexterity and human data, we are competitive at the robot foundation model layer as well as the application layer.”
Elvis Nava, Co-Founder and CTO, mimic
“We’re at an inflection point in robotics where learning-based systems meet real industrial needs. We make dexterity deployable at scale, closing the gap between what AI can do in the lab and what factories actually need. Europe has the talent, the infrastructure, and the demand, and we’re building the company that brings all of this together.”
Stefan Weirich, Co-Founder and CEO, mimic
“Elaia is thrilled to lead the seed round in mimic. The world-class team at mimic is addressing one of the most challenging problems in physical AI: dexterous manipulation. mimic’s breakthrough approach integrates a proprietary robotic hand, state-of-the-art foundation models for robotics, and novel data acquisition and training methods.”
Clément Vanden Driessche, Partner, Elaia
“This enables autonomous, versatile manipulation and unlocks a previously untapped segment of the automation market, where the demand for flexible solutions continues to grow.”
Vincent Faber, Investment Manager, Elaia
“At Speedinvest, we’ve always believed that Europe’s strength lies in marrying world-class engineering with foundational research. With mimic, we see exactly that: a platform that unlocks human-level dexterity with frontier AI and solves billion-dollar problems on factory floors today. This is the moment Europe steps forward to compete and lead in the new era of AI and robotics.”
Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, General Partner, Speedinvest
