Sensetics, a Princeton-based haptics and touch data startup that develops technology to bring realistic tactile experiences into the digital realm, has raised $1.75 million in pre-seed funding to accelerate product development across its integrated hardware and software platform. The round, completed mainly in the Spring, was co-led by MetaVC Partners and Fitz Gate Ventures, with additional participation from Blue Sky Capital and AIC Ventures.
The company is developing technology designed to transform the way both humans and machines interact with the physical world by enabling touch to be recorded, edited, and transmitted in the same manner as sight and sound are today. Its platform uses Touch Signature programmable fabrics paired with AI-driven capture and editing tools, allowing touch experiences to be reproduced with high fidelity. Originating from research at UC Berkeley and Virginia Tech, the system mimics the mechanoreceptors in human fingertips. It provides real-time tactile data transmission from devices such as robotic arms, surgical instruments, wearables, and remote sensing systems. The low latency and durability of the platform enable touch data streaming in a wide array of environments, forming a new category of physical data for automation workflows and AI-driven control systems.
Sensetics sees an opportunity that exceeds $10 billion across industries where force sensing and haptic feedback are fundamental to performance. The company is targeting use cases spanning logistics, transportation, industrial automation, medical robotics, and VR and AR-based training platforms. Leadership believes that digitizing touch, a core human sense, has the potential to create a market shift comparable to the digital transformation of audio and video.
The founding team blends entrepreneurial and academic depth. CEO Adam B. Hopkins previously founded and led Uniformity Labs and is an established inventor and scientific author with experience in high-tech and financial services. CTO Rayne Zheng serves as a professor at UC Berkeley and directs the Berkeley Sensors and Actuators Center, with widely published work across materials science, robotics, and AI.
The company’s investors cite Sensetics’ combination of proprietary technology, market potential, and team strength as drivers of their commitments. MetaVC, Fitz Gate, Blue Sky Capital, and AIC Ventures each emphasize deep tech expertise, academic collaboration, and the expanding need for advanced sensing and feedback systems in next-generation computing and robotics platforms.
Sensetics continues to position itself as a foundational enabler of physical AI, envisioning a future in which machines understand and respond to the world not only visually and aurally, but through the digital transmission of touch at human resolution.
KEY QUOTES
“We see a pivotal moment at the intersection of human machine interaction and touch technology. Demand for haptic controllers and high resolution tactile sensors is surging in healthcare, industrial, aerospace, defense and robotics applications. Our mission is to make touch the next digital sense and to build a data platform for physical AI comparable in scale and importance to computer vision.”
Adam B. Hopkins, CEO
“We’re excited to back Sensetics as it pioneers the next frontier of human machine interaction. Digitizing touch is an extraordinarily complex challenge—one that Sensetics is solving through an elegant application of mechanical metamaterials. By unlocking high fidelity tactile sensing and feedback, Sensetics is laying the foundation for a new generation of intelligent machines capable of perceiving and responding to the physical world with superhuman sensitivity and precision.”
Chris Alliegro, Managing Partner, MetaVC Partners
“Sensetics squarely fits our investment thesis, because it is a deep tech company utilizing proprietary IP to create an entirely new industrial category that targets a massive market opportunity, and it has an outstanding founding team.”
Mark Poag, GP, Fitz Gate Ventures
