# Michael Lingelbach

> Michael Lingelbach is the San Francisco-based co-founder and CEO of Hedra. A former Stanford Vision & Learning Lab doctoral researcher advised by Fei-Fei Li and Jiajun Wu, he co-authored BEHAVIOR and iGibson research before leaving in 2023 to build tools for AI character performance. His theatre background informs his focus on expressive characters; his recent work includes Hedra Omnia and the expansion of Hedra’s developer platform.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at Hedra
- **Organizations:** Hedra, Stanford University, NVIDIA, University of Virginia
- **Education:** Bachelor of Science, University of Virginia, Doctoral studies; left to build Hedra, degree not completed, Stanford University
- **Known for:** Co-founded Hedra with Alexander Bergman., Co-authored BEHAVIOR, an embodied AI benchmark with 100 everyday household activities., Co-authored iGibson 2.0 research.

## Career timeline

- **2011-2015** — Studied at the University of Virginia, earning a BS.
- **2018-2023** — Doctoral research at Stanford; worked in the Vision & Learning Lab under Fei-Fei Li and Jiajun Wu.
- **2021** — Co-authored BEHAVIOR and iGibson 2.0 research.
- **2022** — Interned at NVIDIA and presented at the BEHAVIOR ECCV tutorial.
- **2023** — Left Stanford doctoral research to co-found Hedra with Alexander Bergman.
- **2024-06** — Hedra launched its Character-1 research preview.
- **2024** — Announced a $10 million seed round and over 350,000 research-preview users.
- **2025-05** — Hedra announced a $32 million Series A led by a16z Infra, with $44 million total funding reported.
- **2026-02** — Published an explanation of Hedra Omnia and partner post-training.
- **2026-10** — Hedra published its expanded developer API guide.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Hedra with Alexander Bergman.
- Co-authored BEHAVIOR, an embodied AI benchmark with 100 everyday household activities.
- Co-authored iGibson 2.0 research.
- Hedra reported over 10 million videos and more than 2.5 million users in May 2025.
- Led Hedra through a $32 million Series A announced in May 2025.
- Named a Regina Casper Graduate Fellow at Stanford.

## Latest updates

- **2026-02** — Authored Hedra’s Omnia post describing a unified visual foundation and partner post-training.
- **2026-03** — Discussed Omnia, Avatar, Teams and Agent in a public product update.
- **2026-10** — Hedra published an expanded developer API guide covering model access, SDKs, CLI and MCP.

## Links

- Website: https://mlingelbach.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-lingelbach-81980917a/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/mjlbach
- GitHub: https://github.com/mjlbach

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/michael-lingelbach
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-22