# Adarsh Kulkarni

> Adarsh Kulkarni is the founder and CEO of Foundry Robotics, a San Francisco startup building what it calls the 'Everything Factory' - an AI-and-robotics-first, assembly-focused, dual-use contract manufacturer aimed at rebuilding American manufacturing capacity. A Penn GRASP Lab robotics engineer, he cut his teeth deploying legged robots underground for the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, was an early autonomy engineer at Ghost Robotics (acquired for $400M), built ML infrastructure at self-driving truck company TuSimple, and rose to Head of Robotics at Scale AI before striking out on his own. Foundry uses Vision-Language-Action foundation models to let a single factory assemble many different products without traditional retooling, and raised a seed round in early 2026 backed by Garuda Ventures and Khosla Ventures.

- **Role:** Founder & CEO at Foundry Robotics
- **Organizations:** Foundry Robotics, Scale AI, TuSimple, Ghost Robotics, University of Pennsylvania (GRASP Lab), Oracle, George Mason University
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Robotics, MSE (Master of Science in Engineering), University of Pennsylvania (GRASP Laboratory), Bachelor's degree (robotics), University of Pennsylvania, Jefferson Diploma, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
- **Known for:** Founder & CEO of Foundry Robotics, Rose to Head of Robotics at Scale AI, Early autonomy engineer at Ghost Robotics, which was acquired for roughly $400M

## Career timeline

- **2019-2021** — Researcher at Penn's GRASP Lab; worked on multi-quadruped exploration for the DARPA Subterranean Challenge
- **2020** — Co-authored 'Mine Tunnel Exploration Using Multiple Quadrupedal Robots' (IEEE RA-L / ICRA 2020)
- **2021** — Completed Robotics MSE at the University of Pennsylvania
- **circa 2021-2022** — Early autonomy engineer at Ghost Robotics, working with the DoD on legged-robot deployment (company later acquired for ~$400M)
- **circa 2022** — ML Infrastructure engineer at TuSimple (autonomous trucking)
- **circa 2023-2025** — Joined Scale AI as a software engineer, rose to Head of Robotics
- **2025** — Founded Foundry Robotics to build the 'Everything Factory'
- **2026-02** — Foundry Robotics announced its seed round, led by Garuda Ventures with Khosla Ventures and others

## Achievements

- Founder & CEO of Foundry Robotics
- Rose to Head of Robotics at Scale AI
- Early autonomy engineer at Ghost Robotics, which was acquired for roughly $400M
- Co-authored peer-reviewed robotics research on multi-robot subterranean exploration (IEEE RA-L, ICRA 2020)
- Contributed to the DARPA Subterranean Challenge with Penn's GRASP Lab
- Raised a seed round for Foundry Robotics from Garuda Ventures and Khosla Ventures

## Latest updates

- **2026-02** — Foundry Robotics announced its seed financing, led by Garuda Ventures with Khosla Ventures and other investors, to build its AI-first contract manufacturing platform.
- **2025-10** — Kulkarni publicly announced the launch of Foundry Robotics and began hiring engineers.

## Links

- Website: https://foundryrobotics.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adarsh-kulkarni/
- GitHub: https://github.com/AdarshK1
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@adarshkulkarni3703

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/adarsh-kulkarni
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-25