Evan Beard

CEO of Standard Bots

[Standard Bots @standardbots]

250 years of America in the making. Here's to the next 250. Happy 4th of July! 🇺🇸

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

@standardbots won best software / AI at @AutomateShow, the biggest automation trade show in North America. The judges brought unseen objects for us to manipulate and we were able to handle all. Let's go!! so proud of our team.

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

A country that can't build its own machines has outsourced its own future.

We're going to build them here, run them here, and put Americans to work doing it.

Robots are how America makes things again. The future is bright 🇺🇸

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

Just spent the morning at the White House complex roundtable on America First industrial policy — machine tools, advanced manufacturing, and the industrial base everything else is built on.

Kicked off by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.

I was there as the founder of an American robotics company - we were the only American-born, American-owned robotics company in the room. Here's what we're all trying to solve: 🧵

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

And policy is finally lining up with the physics. What struck me: Lutnick and Navarro understand this at a technical level — and they're moving mountains to clear the way to reindustrialize America:

– A Section 232 national-security review of robots & machinery
– Full expensing + incentives for building in America
– Real capital flowing to domestic production

The moment to scale American robot manufacturing is now — and that’s what we’re doing.

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

Best cold email I’ve received. Apparently when you raise your series C you get this. Though not sure if it was only up for the camera exposure time. Still points for @Nasdaq - thank you!!

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

@davidmaris @ellenjdasilva @standardbots sent

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

@davidmaris @ellenjdasilva @standardbots Yes - what schools would be best / do you have a connection?

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

@ellenjdasilva @standardbots @ellenjdasilva shoot me your email on DM and our team will arrange a tour for him. We also work with a local coding school if he wants to start programming with our simulator and they can share info

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

@smehmood @niteshiftdev Great product - our team has really enjoyed using it. Only one we've found that can orchestrate all of our containers so LLMs can close loop / makes new dev setup instant

[TBPN @tbpn]

Before humanoid robots are ready for homes, they need to pass the "Home Alone test," according to Standard Bots CEO @evanbeard.

"We think maybe humanoids are right for the home. But then you have the safety issue. When it's going up the stairs, you need two five-year-olds to be able to jump on the back of it, pull it, or try to trip it. It's the Home Alone test."

"You see RL robots and it looks so impressive. I think the average person thinks 'Oh yeah, robotics is solved.' But to beat the Home Alone test, RL is not quite there and it's hard to simulate all the things that an eight-year-old could do to it. So you can't even do the RL right now. It's an unsolved problem... I think it's going to be years away from being solved in the home."

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

You need the gong to make the raise official! Thanks @tbpn for having me today, cc @jordihays @johncoogan, smart guys and great show

[Standard Bots @standardbots]

We made it to @tbpn. Gong!

Co-founder and CEO @evanbeard on the announcement of our $200M Series C funding round. We make robots for the people who make America. And we're on track to deliver 10% of all U.S. industrial robots by next year.

Thanks for having us @johncoogan and @jordihays!

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

So fun showing @IlirAliu_ , the #1 influencer on Twitter in robotics, around our factory this week. On top of being kind and super sharp, great cameraman too

[Ilir Aliu @IlirAliu_]

China installed 9x more industrial robots than the US last year.

But an American comeback is quietly underway.

This startup could produce 10% of all new industrial robots in the US next year.

Today, it raised $200M at a $1B valuation.

Why this is a big deal... 🧵

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

Great time on @BloombergTV today announcing our $200M raise at a $1B valuation. Thank you for having me @CarolineHydeTV

https://t.co/iQ5kRB9p6J

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

I love working with @generalcatalyst, especially our partners @quentinclark and @max_rimpel. These guys are the best in the world for an AI-focused company and I really enjoyed this interview.

[General Catalyst @generalcatalyst]

“If the technology that helps us be competitive in manufacturing comes from an adversarial country, we have a serious problem.”

@standardbots is building the robots that bring American manufacturing back, designed so any worker can train them.

We’re proud to double down on their $200M Series C. Congratulations to the entire team.

Watch GC's @quentinclark in conversation with @evanbeard.

Chapters
00:00 — CRM to CNC
02:52 — What 100 Customers Wanted
05:43 — The Garage Years
12:10 — Start Small to Win Big
14:18 — Closing the Manufacturing Gap
19:13 — Designing for the Worker
25:07 — How AI Changes Robotics
36:47 — Reigniting American Industry
38:09 — “The Making of the Product Is a Product”
39:55 — Should the US Ban Chinese Robots?
43:28 — The Physical AI Moment
48:11 — Robots Everywhere in Five Years
54:50 — Inspiring Tinkerers

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

Excited to share our latest milestone: $200M Series C at a $1 billion valuation. We’re already America’s largest manufacturer of AI-native industrial robots. With this funding, we’ll expand our New York production facility to keep pace with demand so that by the end of next year we’ll be manufacturing everything in America, representing 10% of all U.S. industrial robot deployments. American manufacturing must come back.📈

[Standard Bots @standardbots]

Today, we’re thrilled to announce our $200M Series C funding round at a $1B valuation, led by @RoboStrategy and existing investors including @generalcatalyst.

Standard Bots is now America’s largest manufacturer of AI-native industrial robots. Our customers include Sunoco, Lockheed Martin, NASA, and the US Army along with hundreds of other manufacturers across the country. We’re proud to say that we’re on track to deploy 10% of all U.S. industrial robots by next year.

We are expanding our Glen Cove, New York facility to 70,000 square feet to scale our vertically integrated production process. We currently design almost all our own parts, including our own actuators, and we assemble every final product in-house. By 2027, we’ll manufacture everything — from metal in to robots out — right here in America.

We believe AI-native robots are the essential power tool of the 21st century — the tool that will grow American manufacturing and help every American worker to be a force at work. You just show your robot how it’s done, and it learns through demonstration. No coding, no consultants, just unbox and deploy faster than anything else on the market.

Right now it’s possible for the United States to revitalize our manufacturing base if we become the worldwide leader in this transformative technology.

We must build American robots, and put them to work in American factories. It’s a national imperative, and it’s our central mission. This fundraise gets us one step closer to the goal.

The future of American manufacturing is bright! Join Standard Bots, and show your robot how it’s done — we’re just getting started.

[Evan Beard @evanbeard]

Excited to see this. I’ve talked to hundreds of venture investors over the years, and @Rewkang is one of the most technical robotics investors I’ve met. He deeply understands the market and our products — actually doing the work to fly to our facility, spending time using our robots, and finding and visiting our customers. He’s one of very few investors with whom I’ve discussed model architectures and debated research papers. That technical depth doesn’t just help him make better investment decisions; it makes him a genuinely more useful partner to founders.

[Andrew Kang @Rewkang]

Proud to announce my position as CEO of @RoboStrategy.

When I initially started looking into investing in robotics 2 years ago most VCs I consulted with recommended not to invest in the space. Robotics companies at this time did not have an easy time raising capital. The industry didn’t have a track record of big venture winners, was perceived to be challenging for a variety of reasons, and was not well understood. But it was clear to me that the rate of acceleration of physical AI development would dramatically change the industry. I invested $19m into FigureAI as my first investment.

I believed it was a question of when, not if we could imbue machines around the world with physical intelligence. To accomplish this, the industry would need a tremendous amount of capital to grow, and also an investment firm that deeply understood the needs of robotics/physical AI companies so that it could build a platform to better support them. It will take hundreds of billions to capitalize the mechanized future meaning there is a big gap in the market. We decided we wanted to fill it.

Previously, Mechanism Capital had never taken outside capital, but to do this at the scale I envision, I would need to do so. However, the private markets don’t have that scale. The public markets do, and it was clear that there is and likely will be tremendous appetite for public market investors to participate in the immense value creation happening in AI & robotics that only private market investors currently have the privilege of accessing. The explosive growth of AI companies is a precursor of what will happen in physical AI. So in 2025, we founded RoboStrategy and a year later, we took it public on Nasdaq. Throughout this year, we’ve assembled a great portfolio, started leading rounds of some amazing companies, and have built the foundation to be ready to scale to the next level after going public.

We look different from a traditional VC firm in ways that founders appreciate. Our structure as a closed end fund means our capital is permanent - no fund life meaning we can invest with extremely long time horizons. Our investment firm also of course needs to have deep industry and research experience so that it can make the best risk reward optimized investment decisions. In the last year, we’ve brought on some truly exceptional robotics industry veterans who have previously served for decades as founders/operators. Many founders we talk to consider us as the most sophisticated venture capital firm they’ve talked to and we only intend to grow our expertise in the industry. RoboStrategy’s success depends on our ability to distribute the fund and capture maximal mindshare. This plays to our team’s strength in digital marketing and social media. We’re building a special marketing engine that serves as an attention amplifier for both us and our founders so that our products and stories can reach more people.

A source of inspiration for our fund structure, Strategy (MSTR) raised tens of billions from public capital markets to invest in Bitcoin. I believe robotics will be a much larger industry than Bitcoin and the asset class is orders of magnitude less accessible. We are aiming to raise more and not only become the largest robotics investor globally, but also one of the largest venture capital funds in the world. Venture capital has traditionally been restricted to a limited group of investors. We are changing the paradigm and bringing it to the rest of the world.

Be sure to follow @RoboStrategy.

Job’s not finished.