SYNCERE has raised $11 million in pre-seed funding to scale deployment of its LUME home robot and expand the company’s physical AI technology into additional applications. The financing was led by a16z Speedrun, with participation from Draper Associates, Physical World, Sequel, SeaX Ventures, and other investors.
SYNCERE was founded less than a year ago by roboticists Dr. Aaron Tan and Dr. Angus Fung.
The Palo Alto-based company is developing what it describes as a deployment and intelligence layer for home robotics.
Its first product, LUME, combines a sculptural floor lamp with robotic manipulation, perception systems, and local AI computing capabilities.
The product is designed to operate as a functional lamp immediately while gradually gaining the ability to perform household tasks as its software improves.
LUME can move around a home and perform chores including folding laundry, tidying, and making beds.
The robot starts at $2,699.
SYNCERE said LUME has generated millions of dollars in pre-order demand and was named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2026.
The company’s strategy centers on solving a challenge in robotics development: systems need data from real homes to become more capable, but consumers may hesitate to bring robots into their homes before they are useful enough.
SYNCERE designed LUME to provide immediate value as a household object while simultaneously giving the company a way to deploy physical AI systems into real environments and improve them through software.
Customers will be able to teach LUME how they prefer tasks to be completed, allowing the system to adapt to individual homes and preferences.
Every deployed system is intended to contribute information that improves future autonomy, while software updates can add new capabilities without requiring replacement hardware.
SYNCERE plans to use the financing to accelerate LUME deliveries, expand manufacturing capacity, and develop its physical AI platform for new commercial applications.
The company’s team includes researchers and engineers with backgrounds at Stanford, Harvard, the University of Toronto, UC Berkeley, Nuro, AMD, GM, and Apple.
KEY QUOTES:
“Home robotics has a deployment problem disguised as a data problem. Robots need real-world data to become reliable, but they can’t get into people’s homes until they’re reliable. We built LUME to break that cycle. By creating a robot that people already want in their homes as a beautiful, functional lamp, we can deploy earlier, learn from real households, and improve autonomy over time. Every LUME we ship makes our technology smarter, and every software update makes the same robot more useful.”
Dr. Aaron Tan, Co-Founder And CEO Of SYNCERE
“What stood out to us about SYNCERE is that the company has designed distribution and learning together. They have moved remarkably quickly, built a product with the potential to reach a broad consumer and commercial market, and demonstrated meaningful demand before first shipments. Getting robots into real homes earlier creates a fundamentally different path to improving household autonomy.”
Andrew Chen, General Partner At a16z Speedrun
