Pinned Tweet
Today we’re out of stealth, and we’ve raised a $40m seed round co-led by @creandum and @usv, to bring Instant Robot Learning to life.
For the past few months, we‘ve been busy building a new company.
Machenta.
This follows results from a new kind of robot foundation model we’ve ited to share with you today!
Usually, it takes hours/days of data collection and training to teach a robot.
We’ve built a model that learns tasks instantly: one demonstration, no further training.
A model trained entirely in simulation, without a single pixel of real-world data.
A model where teaching robots is so quick and easy, it feels like physical vibe coding.
A model for robots that learn like humans do, from someone like you.
Welcome to the era of Instant Robot Learning.
Thank you @Kathi_Wilhelm, @rebeccakaden, @hkanji, @jonno_evans and all of our angels for your support!
@Machenta_
Learn more: machenta.com/blog/instant-r…
See below for what you can do with Instant Robot Learning!
For the past few months, we‘ve been busy building a new company.
Machenta.
This follows results from a new kind of robot foundation model we’ve ited to share with you today!
Usually, it takes hours/days of data collection and training to teach a robot.
We’ve built a model that learns tasks instantly: one demonstration, no further training.
A model trained entirely in simulation, without a single pixel of real-world data.
A model where teaching robots is so quick and easy, it feels like physical vibe coding.
A model for robots that learn like humans do, from someone like you.
Welcome to the era of Instant Robot Learning.
Thank you @Kathi_Wilhelm, @rebeccakaden, @hkanji, @jonno_evans and all of our angels for your support!
@Machenta_
Learn more: machenta.com/blog/instant-r…
See below for what you can do with Instant Robot Learning!
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A peak into what our empty lab looked like on the very first day of Machenta!
@Machenta_ is out of stealth with a $40m seed round, co-led by @creandum and @usv—the UK’s largest-ever robotics seed!
From laptops in an empty office to this brilliant team. What a year building this with friends.
We’re hiring - come build with us!
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Edward Johns retweeted
Now that we’re out of stealth, we’re growing the team, and we’re looking for exceptional people to join us.
At @Machenta_, we’re working on some of the hardest problems in robotics, and that’s exactly what makes it so much fun. Every week, something that seemed impossible starts ull of technical magicians who make that happen, and above all, they’re truly wonderful people. With them, hard work feels like an adventure that you get to go on every day.
If you’re excited to throw yourself at these challenges and come along for the ride, get in touch at machenta.com/team
Roles we’re hiring for:
• Member of Technical Staff — Robot Learning
• Member of Technical Staff — Robot Control
• Member of Technical Staff — Robot Simulation
• Member of Technical Staff — 3D Machine Learning
• Community Lead
At @Machenta_, we’re working on some of the hardest problems in robotics, and that’s exactly what makes it so much fun. Every week, something that seemed impossible starts ull of technical magicians who make that happen, and above all, they’re truly wonderful people. With them, hard work feels like an adventure that you get to go on every day.
If you’re excited to throw yourself at these challenges and come along for the ride, get in touch at machenta.com/team
Roles we’re hiring for:
• Member of Technical Staff — Robot Learning
• Member of Technical Staff — Robot Control
• Member of Technical Staff — Robot Simulation
• Member of Technical Staff — 3D Machine Learning
• Community Lead
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What might happen when anyone can teach a robot any new task in just a minute? We're looking for someone to help us find out.
At @Machenta_, we're now hiring for a really unique, creative, and exciting role: our Community Lead.
You're going to be building a new community around ing model, from the bottom up. Just imagine what a robotics hackathon might look like when you can teach robots instantly, and all the creative ways people will use our model now that we're enabling "Physical Vibe Coding".
You'll fully own our community approach, from strategy to execution — whether you're building relationships with developers, creating online content and tutorials to showcase our model, or organising events and hackathons.
This is a hands-on role, ideal for someone energetic and creative who's excited about being an external ambassador for Machenta, whilst working closely with us all in person in London. Although you're not expected to be a robot learning expert, you'll need to have a good understanding of the robotics and AI space, and you should be excited to learn about our technology well enough to talk about it with confidence.
To learn more, visit machenta.com/team. See you there!
And please share with anybody who might like to see this. It's going to be perfect for the right person!
At @Machenta_, we're now hiring for a really unique, creative, and exciting role: our Community Lead.
You're going to be building a new community around ing model, from the bottom up. Just imagine what a robotics hackathon might look like when you can teach robots instantly, and all the creative ways people will use our model now that we're enabling "Physical Vibe Coding".
You'll fully own our community approach, from strategy to execution — whether you're building relationships with developers, creating online content and tutorials to showcase our model, or organising events and hackathons.
This is a hands-on role, ideal for someone energetic and creative who's excited about being an external ambassador for Machenta, whilst working closely with us all in person in London. Although you're not expected to be a robot learning expert, you'll need to have a good understanding of the robotics and AI space, and you should be excited to learn about our technology well enough to talk about it with confidence.
To learn more, visit machenta.com/team. See you there!
And please share with anybody who might like to see this. It's going to be perfect for the right person!
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Sacha, I’ve loved sitting alongside you these past few months. You’ve helped build such a wonderful team culture here, and I’m so excited for the next phase of the team!
@Machenta_ launched with a $40M seed round co-led by Creandum and USV.
We also launched with the best team I’ve ever known. Wildly clever, experimental, and all excited to change the world.
We’re hiring! Come change it with us.
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On Tuesday, we announced @Machenta_ and Instant Robot Learning.
Today, we’re looking for the next people to join us all in London!
machenta.com/team
Building Machenta with everyone here has been such an adventure. And above all, so much fun.
Partly I think this is unate enough to find a group of people who are just extraordinarily passionate, about both the research and the startup experience. But partly, it’s the magic of instant learning. Every morning when you walk into the lab, you can dream up an entirely new task, teach the robot, and just see what happens next. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, there’s something incredible about all huddling around together to watch.
All these little moments become memories that stick. I’ll never forget the first time @vitalisvos19 showed me Instant Robot Learning on a bimanual robot, tidying up Christmas crackers last December. I’ll never forget the day an investor surprised us by turning up with a collection of their own objects to test the model on (it worked — phew!). And I’ll never forget the first day each new member of the team walked through the door and instantly became part of the gang.
We’re moving quickly here, we work very hard, and we collaborate closely in a flat structure. Everyone brings their own expertise to a different part of Machenta, but there’s a real sense that we’re all building this together. We’re a very close team, working in person every day and sharing in all the little moments along the way.
And we’re now going to go out and find the right people to join us for this next phase of the journey. We’ll give you real ownership and responsibility for your part of Machenta, and an opportunity to shape where we all take this together next.
So if you’re excited to be part of this with us all, today we're hiring for five roles:
• Member of Technical Staff — Robot Learning
• Member of Technical Staff — Robot Control
• Member of Technical Staff — Robot Simulation
• Member of Technical Staff — 3D Machine Learning
• Community Lead
Come and say hi at machenta.com/team.
See you there!
Today, we’re looking for the next people to join us all in London!
machenta.com/team
Building Machenta with everyone here has been such an adventure. And above all, so much fun.
Partly I think this is unate enough to find a group of people who are just extraordinarily passionate, about both the research and the startup experience. But partly, it’s the magic of instant learning. Every morning when you walk into the lab, you can dream up an entirely new task, teach the robot, and just see what happens next. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, there’s something incredible about all huddling around together to watch.
All these little moments become memories that stick. I’ll never forget the first time @vitalisvos19 showed me Instant Robot Learning on a bimanual robot, tidying up Christmas crackers last December. I’ll never forget the day an investor surprised us by turning up with a collection of their own objects to test the model on (it worked — phew!). And I’ll never forget the first day each new member of the team walked through the door and instantly became part of the gang.
We’re moving quickly here, we work very hard, and we collaborate closely in a flat structure. Everyone brings their own expertise to a different part of Machenta, but there’s a real sense that we’re all building this together. We’re a very close team, working in person every day and sharing in all the little moments along the way.
And we’re now going to go out and find the right people to join us for this next phase of the journey. We’ll give you real ownership and responsibility for your part of Machenta, and an opportunity to shape where we all take this together next.
So if you’re excited to be part of this with us all, today we're hiring for five roles:
• Member of Technical Staff — Robot Learning
• Member of Technical Staff — Robot Control
• Member of Technical Staff — Robot Simulation
• Member of Technical Staff — 3D Machine Learning
• Community Lead
Come and say hi at machenta.com/team.
See you there!
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Steerability is important in robot learning!
When teaching robots using a pre-trained model, it's important to show that the model is "steerable".
This means that, given the same set of objects, you can teach the robot different interactions just by providing different s is possible, it shows that the model is genuinely conditioning its behaviour on the teaching demonstrations, rather than simply performing one of the tasks learned during pre-training.
At @Machenta_, we've built our model to be instantly steerable from a single demonstration.
The video below shows this: using the same objects, we teach the robot three different interactions just by changing the demonstration each time.
machenta.com/blog/instant-r…
When teaching robots using a pre-trained model, it's important to show that the model is "steerable".
This means that, given the same set of objects, you can teach the robot different interactions just by providing different s is possible, it shows that the model is genuinely conditioning its behaviour on the teaching demonstrations, rather than simply performing one of the tasks learned during pre-training.
At @Machenta_, we've built our model to be instantly steerable from a single demonstration.
The video below shows this: using the same objects, we teach the robot three different interactions just by changing the demonstration each time.
machenta.com/blog/instant-r…
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We’ve built a one-shot, one-person factory!
We taught a robot assembly line using Instant Robot Learning at @Machenta_.
Normally, this would take weeks of system integration, but it took us two minutes to teach.
See the video below 👇
Three different bimanual robots are aging task. All three robots:
• Have different camera setups.
• Were taught using different teaching modes.
But they all run the same end-to-end model.
The model has never seen these objects before. It was trained 100% in simulation, and these objects were not in the simulation.
I was also asked about this one-person factory at @MTSlive. Check out our conversation below!
We taught a robot assembly line using Instant Robot Learning at @Machenta_.
Normally, this would take weeks of system integration, but it took us two minutes to teach.
See the video below 👇
Three different bimanual robots are aging task. All three robots:
• Have different camera setups.
• Were taught using different teaching modes.
But they all run the same end-to-end model.
The model has never seen these objects before. It was trained 100% in simulation, and these objects were not in the simulation.
I was also asked about this one-person factory at @MTSlive. Check out our conversation below!
Machenta CEO @Ed__Johns explains how his team automated an entire assembly line in just 2 minutes, something that normally takes weeks or months:
"I decided I wanted to automate an entire assembly line. We put three robots side by side and created a task where the robots would close the box, and each robot would do a different part of that task."
"I thought it’d be really cool if we could automate that whole thing in about two minutes, because traditionally automating an assembly line would take weeks or maybe even months of systems integration and manual programming. It’d be extremely expensive."
"If we could get instant robot learning working on an entire assembly line, this would be evidence of what the future of the manufacturing industry would look like."
"That’s one of my favorite tasks, an entire assembly line automated in two minutes."
@Machenta_
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Rebecca, we're very excited to now be building with you and @usv. Instant Robot Learning and Physical Vibe Coding, let's go!
The ability to create and build faster than ever before has been a transformative hallmark of the age of intelligence and LLMs.
@Machenta_ brings this into the physical world with their instant learning foundation model, enabling robots to learn quickly, no days of training data required.
Sometimes you back teams that build on concepts. Here @usv gets to partner with the team that created it and is now bringing it to the world. Lets go @Ed__Johns @vitalisvos19 and team Machenta!
usv.com/writing/physic…
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Quick video showing some of the "Reactivity & Recovery" capabilities of Instant Robot Learning at @Machenta_:
1. One real demonstration: putting blue object in grey box and closing box.
2. Robot reacts in real time when object and box are moved around, with a closed-loop end-recovers when object is pulled out of gripper, and re-grasps it.
4. Robot notices that object is removed from box, and places it back in.
5. Robot notices that box lid is opened, and re-closes it.
The important part:
1. None of this reactivity and recovery needed to be shown in the demonstration: it all comes from the intelligence of the pre-trained model.
2. Model has never seen these objects before. It is trained 100% in simulation, and these objects were not in the simulation.
machenta.com/blog/instant-r…
1. One real demonstration: putting blue object in grey box and closing box.
2. Robot reacts in real time when object and box are moved around, with a closed-loop end-recovers when object is pulled out of gripper, and re-grasps it.
4. Robot notices that object is removed from box, and places it back in.
5. Robot notices that box lid is opened, and re-closes it.
The important part:
1. None of this reactivity and recovery needed to be shown in the demonstration: it all comes from the intelligence of the pre-trained model.
2. Model has never seen these objects before. It is trained 100% in simulation, and these objects were not in the simulation.
machenta.com/blog/instant-r…
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Edward Johns retweeted
It‘s becoming obvious that large-scale data collection is a dead end for robotics. LLM training was the wrong reference.
Today we’re out of stealth, and we’ve raised a $40m seed round co-led by @creandum and @usv, to bring Instant Robot Learning to life.
For the past few months, we‘ve been busy building a new company.
Machenta.
This follows results from a new kind of robot foundation model we’ve ited to share with you today!
Usually, it takes hours/days of data collection and training to teach a robot.
We’ve built a model that learns tasks instantly: one demonstration, no further training.
A model trained entirely in simulation, without a single pixel of real-world data.
A model where teaching robots is so quick and easy, it feels like physical vibe coding.
A model for robots that learn like humans do, from someone like you.
Welcome to the era of Instant Robot Learning.
Thank you @Kathi_Wilhelm, @rebeccakaden, @hkanji, @jonno_evans and all of our angels for your support!
@Machenta_
Learn more: machenta.com/blog/instant-r…
See below for what you can do with Instant Robot Learning!
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Thanks @MTSlive for the chat last night about Instant Robot Learning! Here's a little clip about why we're excited at @Machenta_ to be building AI for robots that learn instantly.
Machenta CEO @Ed__Johns reveals how betting against the robotics industry's approach led his team to build robots that learn new tasks instantly from just one demonstration:
"I decided what I wanted to build is a robot brain that can learn tasks like a human. And the rest of the ferent direction."
"They started collecting lots and lots of data in the real world, with the assumption that you would need to provide hundreds of demonstrations."
"I always thought there’s something not quite right about that, where a robot would need to spend hours or days to learn a task. That’s what I bet on at Imperial College."
"The internals of it are nothing like the human brain. But the way you interact with it is like interacting with a human."
"If I wanted to teach you a task, I could give you a demonstration, and you’d be able to do that task. You wouldn’t need hundreds of demonstrations, and you wouldn’t need days or weeks of training."
"You provide one demonstration of the task, and then instantly the robot will be able to perform that task. Which is very different to what’s been going on elsewhere in robotics, where the assumption has been that you need lots and lots of data to teach a robot even a basic task."
@Machenta_
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Edward Johns retweeted
London has a new Physical AI Lab. 🔥🇬🇧🇪🇺
And they have a legit claim to be soon a world leading one.
What MACHENTA does is close to heretical.
It's a completely different approach to building models, that doesn't require massive amounts of data, nor post-training, but can repeat a task after showing it only once.
It's a complete narrative violation to everything we know in robotics right now.
No absurdly large vision models.
No hours of post-training needed.
But it works instantly.
You show it. It can repeat it.
Not 20 video takes and then keeping the one that worked. You show it. And very very very likely it can repeat that new task after only that one demonstration.
Their technical approach is also fundamentally different. Heavy focus on in-context learning, explicitly 3D, and tons more that i am unsure if it's public information.
They is a non-zero chance that they will unlock autocomplete for the world. Do a task. Click a button. Get out of the way and the machine repeats it until it runs out of material.
And yes, one more time. This is real.
I have seen it multiple times myself (Investors since over a year). You demo it. And that's it. It can repeat it almost every time after only that one demonstration. 🤯
Kudos to @Ed__Johns and @vitalisvos19 for launching!
PS: If you want to join a breakout Physical AI lab -> Machenta is likely they one to apply to right now. x.com/Ed__Johns/stat…
And they have a legit claim to be soon a world leading one.
What MACHENTA does is close to heretical.
It's a completely different approach to building models, that doesn't require massive amounts of data, nor post-training, but can repeat a task after showing it only once.
It's a complete narrative violation to everything we know in robotics right now.
No absurdly large vision models.
No hours of post-training needed.
But it works instantly.
You show it. It can repeat it.
Not 20 video takes and then keeping the one that worked. You show it. And very very very likely it can repeat that new task after only that one demonstration.
Their technical approach is also fundamentally different. Heavy focus on in-context learning, explicitly 3D, and tons more that i am unsure if it's public information.
They is a non-zero chance that they will unlock autocomplete for the world. Do a task. Click a button. Get out of the way and the machine repeats it until it runs out of material.
And yes, one more time. This is real.
I have seen it multiple times myself (Investors since over a year). You demo it. And that's it. It can repeat it almost every time after only that one demonstration. 🤯
Kudos to @Ed__Johns and @vitalisvos19 for launching!
PS: If you want to join a breakout Physical AI lab -> Machenta is likely they one to apply to right now. x.com/Ed__Johns/stat…
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Fun times at ETN today — we made it to #1 on the funding leaderboard! (Small caveat: we’re the first company they’ve put up there 🤷♂️) @Machenta_
Machenta just came out of stealth with a $40M seed, making them the inaugural company on our new funding leaderboard -- the first of many to come:
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On the back of our @Machenta_ launch today, I'll be joining MTS live today at 8:45pm UK, 1:45pm PT. Join us at the link below to hear all about the world of Instant Robot Learning!
OPENAI PHYSICS BREAKTHROUGHS | BLUECHIP LAPTOP | QWEN NEURONS x.com/i/broadcasts/1…
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Thanks Ted! Yes, test-time steerability with a physical example is often essential to show what you really want a robot to do.
For robotics to mature as a deployable technology, it may be critical for models to go beyond natural language.
I’ve been a big fan of demos as a test-time modality, and it’s been extremely exciting to see the progress the @Machenta_ has made the past months!
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Thanks so much Michael! Happy memories talking about our early research on this with you on RoboPapers!
Big congrats to @Ed__Johns & team!
Ed & his lab has done some of the most impressive work on super data efficient robot learning. Super bullish on them!
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Edward Johns retweeted
Big congrats to @Ed__Johns & team!
Ed & his lab has done some of the most impressive work on super data efficient robot learning. Super bullish on them!
Ed & his lab has done some of the most impressive work on super data efficient robot learning. Super bullish on them!
Today we’re out of stealth, and we’ve raised a $40m seed round co-led by @creandum and @usv, to bring Instant Robot Learning to life.
For the past few months, we‘ve been busy building a new company.
Machenta.
This follows results from a new kind of robot foundation model we’ve ited to share with you today!
Usually, it takes hours/days of data collection and training to teach a robot.
We’ve built a model that learns tasks instantly: one demonstration, no further training.
A model trained entirely in simulation, without a single pixel of real-world data.
A model where teaching robots is so quick and easy, it feels like physical vibe coding.
A model for robots that learn like humans do, from someone like you.
Welcome to the era of Instant Robot Learning.
Thank you @Kathi_Wilhelm, @rebeccakaden, @hkanji, @jonno_evans and all of our angels for your support!
@Machenta_
Learn more: machenta.com/blog/instant-r…
See below for what you can do with Instant Robot Learning!
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Thanks for the great summary — we're very excited to be bringing USV into the wider Machenta team, let's go!
$40 Million for Instant Robot Learning.
But why does this matter?
@Ed__Johns and London-based @Machenta_ are obliterating the gap between buying a robot and getting useful work out of it.
It’s a leap in capability that allows anyone to teach a robot a task with a single demonstration and have it adapt when things change.
Getting robots to learn the way people do.
Among many things, this could make small jobs economical to automate and bring robots into dynamic environments where things rarely repeat.
We're very excited to be co-leading this round with our friends at @creandum.
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Edward Johns retweeted
Big congrats to @Ed__Johns and the entire team, in-context learning for robotics from sim only while adapting to real deployments, that's impressive! 🥳
Huge for UK and Europe too!
Huge for UK and Europe too!
Today we’re out of stealth, and we’ve raised a $40m seed round co-led by @creandum and @usv, to bring Instant Robot Learning to life.
For the past few months, we‘ve been busy building a new company.
Machenta.
This follows results from a new kind of robot foundation model we’ve ited to share with you today!
Usually, it takes hours/days of data collection and training to teach a robot.
We’ve built a model that learns tasks instantly: one demonstration, no further training.
A model trained entirely in simulation, without a single pixel of real-world data.
A model where teaching robots is so quick and easy, it feels like physical vibe coding.
A model for robots that learn like humans do, from someone like you.
Welcome to the era of Instant Robot Learning.
Thank you @Kathi_Wilhelm, @rebeccakaden, @hkanji, @jonno_evans and all of our angels for your support!
@Machenta_
Learn more: machenta.com/blog/instant-r…
See below for what you can do with Instant Robot Learning!
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