Aktoria Robotics

Human as API for robots | YC S26
Trained operators who keep deployed robots working & the real-robot data labs train on.

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

We got into @ycombinator.

We're a robotics company that's betting against robotics.

jk... but,

when we watched robots actually get deployed.

Every "autonomous" one had a person behind it like 1x, Zoox, Waymo, almost all you've heard.

So to bet our money on the opposite: the human is the product that takes robotics foundational models to the next level.

@aktoriarobotics is the remote-operations layer for robots teleop software + trained operators, when a robot get's stuck, one of ours takes over in under a second.

cuz someone has to run the 10% autonomy can't reach yet

We are waiving the onboarding fee for our next 10 customers :)

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

We got into @ycombinator.

We're a robotics company that's betting against robotics.

jk... but,

when we watched robots actually get deployed.

Every "autonomous" one had a person behind it like 1x, Zoox, Waymo, almost all you've heard.

So to bet our money on the opposite: the human is the product that takes robotics foundational models to the next level.

@aktoriarobotics is the remote-operations layer for robots teleop software + trained operators, when a robot get's stuck, one of ours takes over in under a second.

cuz someone has to run the 10% autonomy can't reach yet

We are waiving the onboarding fee for our next 10 customers :)

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

We're a @ycombinator-backed robotics company.

We spend our weeks talking to the people deciding what data the world's robots learn from.

If I were getting into robotics and physical AI, these are the people I'd follow:

FRONTIER LABS

Ben Levin: director, robotics & physical AI data @NVIDIARobotics

Svetlana Grant: AI partnerships, AI for robotics @GoogleDeepMind

Yansong Pang: head of robotics AI partnerships @AIatMeta

@peterxichen: head of frontier AI & robotics, Amazon FAR (ex-Covariant CEO)

@Vivan_Amin: principal research TPM @MSFTResearch, shipped rho-alpha

@alexttoshev: research director, @wayve_ai Labs

ROBOT COMPANIES

Andrew Barry: co-founder & CTO @GeneralistAI

Connor Keane: data ops, Atlas @BostonDynamics

Arash Momeni: head of AI data collection, Humanoid

Jonas Messner: head of AI @NEURARobotics

Mouli Sivapurapu: head of data & applications eng @Mind_Robotics

Pally Kumar: head of ops, Genesis AI

Tue Vu: research ops, Field AI

Sandeep Mariserla: head of data ops, Odyssey

Notice the pattern? Half of this list runs data. The bottleneck in robotics isn't models anymore. It's real-world robot data at scale.

That's what we're building at Aktoria (YC S26).

Who else would you add?

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

We're @aktoriarobotics (@ycombinator S26). We make robots work before they're fully autonomous.

AI learned from the internet. Robots need real-world experience.

We provide:

→ Low-latency teleoperation

→ 24/7 trained robot operators

→ Real-world training data

Humans are the API for robots.

Building robots?

What's your biggest autonomy bottleneck?

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

The next billion-dollar robotics company might not build robots.

It might build the infrastructure that keeps them running.

At @aktoriarobotics (YC S26), we're building remote teleoperation and real-world training data for Physical AI.

Building robots, scaling fleets, or training foundation models? Let's talk.

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

@SolnixMedia @ycombinator 100%, that is the unglamorous part that actually moves robots forward.

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

We're a @ycombinator-backed robotics company.

We spend our weeks talking to the people deciding what data the world's robots learn from.

If I were getting into robotics and physical AI, these are the people I'd follow:

FRONTIER LABS

Ben Levin: director, robotics & physical AI data @NVIDIARobotics

Svetlana Grant: AI partnerships, AI for robotics @GoogleDeepMind

Yansong Pang: head of robotics AI partnerships @AIatMeta

@peterxichen: head of frontier AI & robotics, Amazon FAR (ex-Covariant CEO)

@Vivan_Amin: principal research TPM @MSFTResearch, shipped rho-alpha

@alexttoshev: research director, @wayve_ai Labs

ROBOT COMPANIES

Andrew Barry: co-founder & CTO @GeneralistAI

Connor Keane: data ops, Atlas @BostonDynamics

Arash Momeni: head of AI data collection, Humanoid

Jonas Messner: head of AI @NEURARobotics

Mouli Sivapurapu: head of data & applications eng @Mind_Robotics

Pally Kumar: head of ops, Genesis AI

Tue Vu: research ops, Field AI

Sandeep Mariserla: head of data ops, Odyssey

Notice the pattern? Half of this list runs data. The bottleneck in robotics isn't models anymore. It's real-world robot data at scale.

That's what we're building at Aktoria (YC S26).

Who else would you add?

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

@NileshArnaiya @ycombinator @tendonlabs Great add, thanks!

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

@ChrisEllis @ycombinator @Figure_robot @adcock_brett Fair! The list could easily be 3x longer, thanks for adding them.

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

@cspaliwa1 @karanwalia_ai @ShreenabhA @ycombinator Haha, mischief is sadly not one of the criteria. Shipping a humanoid from scratch might help though 😄

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

If you’re applying for an O1 Visa in Robotics

Drop your questions in this thread

Our founders both got their O1s approved this month

@karanwalia_ai and @ShreenabhA

We got accepted to @ycombinator in summer 2026 and are now working with US based robotics founders, Frontier and Research Labs.

@Accel @CarnegieMellon

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

@Vivan_Amin @ycombinator Well deserved, Vivan! Would love to swap notes on what you are seeing in physical + agentic AI sometime.

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

We're @aktoriarobotics (@ycombinator S26). We make robots work before they're fully autonomous.

AI learned from the internet. Robots need real-world experience.

We provide:

→ Low-latency teleoperation

→ 24/7 trained robot operators

→ Real-world training data

Humans are the API for robots.

Building robots?

What's your biggest autonomy bottleneck?

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

Introducing R1 Teleop.
Recorded by humans. Built for robot learning. https://t.co/LqIvbpUyfs

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

Aktoria Daily Takeover 🥳
Has your robot frozen today? How about a human taking over in under a second?
Please keep your robots working, and keep a human on call. https://t.co/xxwRDVOHRr

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

Flora is a suite of open models: it parses the physical world AND turns raw footage into rich training signals.

Flora delivers Astra-level performance at 125x lower cost, and the weights are open 🔥

Congrats to @DrJimFan and the NVIDIA GEAR team

Open weights like these still need real robot data underneath. That's Ben Levin's world at @NVIDIARobotics (Director, Robotics & Physical AI Data).

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

So true, solving this for the world!

[Paige ✈️ CoRL @paigeinsf]

For anyone claiming robotics data is a solved problem or already commoditized:

- Confuses egocentric data with all types of robot-training data
- Has never tested a robotics model zero-shot
- Has never experienced the pain (and joy) of overfitting
- Has never deployed a policy on real hardware, not just in sim
- Has never tested generalization beyond the tasks seen in training or standard benchmarks like robodojo

Robotics data is far from solved.

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

These bots are funny before they are useful. You gotta admit they r damn entertaining!

The new @UnitreeRobotics R1 looking awesome!

[Abinav Ramesh @abinavmoto]

free robot data you can download and check yourself before you pay.. that's rare in physical ai

@ShreenabhA and team at @aktoriarobotics just opened R1 Teleop samples

what it is

> real-robot teleop episodes recorded on their own station
> egocentric data from human workers, stereo + IMU
> free samples, custom collection on request

how it works

when a deployed robot freezes on the unfamiliar part of a job, a trained operator takes over remotely
every takeover gets recorded
that becomes training data

claimed vs proven

> samples page lists 16 embodiments, joints + gripper force at 50 Hz, MCAP / ROS 2 format
> latency numbers (~130 ms india to SF) are their own tests, no independent benchmark yet
> the launch video is only human egocentric footage.. looms, garments, assembly. the robot episodes are on the samples page

founders: Shreenabh (ex-Zoox, CMU, IISc) and Jaskaran Singh Walia, YC S26. no round size published that i could find…

#MachinesThatThink

[Aktoria Robotics @aktoriarobotics]

We built a teleop team that nothing can stop.

Bad Wi-Fi? Stuck grippers? If the bot can move, our operators will move it, even if it’s an entirely new robot body.

Meet the Aktoria Robot Operations Center: https://t.co/xxwRDVPfGZ