Walden Robotics has raised $300 million in seed funding to develop and deploy general-purpose robots for manufacturing and logistics, giving the newly launched company a valuation of $1.1 billion.
The financing was co-led by Toyota Motor Corp., Toyota Invention Partners, Toyota Ventures and Deviation Capital. Other participants included Nvidia, Boeing, AE Ventures, Samsung Ventures, Prologis Ventures, CoreWeave Ventures, Calibrate Ventures, Colle Capital, Shine Capital, NextView Ventures, Squarepoint Capital, One Madison Group, KAS Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company develops robots designed to learn new tasks and improve their performance while working alongside employees in industrial environments.
Walden said its robots are intended to handle tasks that have been difficult to automate, allowing workers to focus on activities requiring judgment, problem-solving and technical expertise. The company is working with partners in the automotive, aerospace, semiconductor, electronics, logistics and life-sciences sectors.
The company’s technology incorporates Large Behavior Models, a class of artificial intelligence models used to train robots to perform physical tasks. Its work also draws on robotics research including Diffusion Policy, an approach to teaching robots through demonstrations and machine learning.
Walden was formed from Toyota Research Institute in January 2026 and began working with customers across several industries shortly afterward. Since February, its robots have been operating at a Toyota manufacturing plant in North America, according to the company. Walden said the project progressed from an initial pilot to production work in less than two months.
Walden co-founder and Chief Executive Russ Tedrake previously served as senior vice president of Large Behavior Models at Toyota Research Institute. He is also a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company’s founding team includes researchers and executives with backgrounds at Toyota Research Institute, MIT, Stanford University and Amazon.
Tedrake said the company intends to work closely with manufacturers to adapt its systems to existing production processes. Toyota Chief Technology Officer Hiroki Nakajima said the investment would support a strategic partnership focused on deploying robots that can learn while operating in industrial settings.
Walden plans to use the funding to develop and deploy its robotics systems across additional production environments.
