vla
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Instance
Instance is a San Francisco startup building the autonomous evaluation rig for robot learning. Its first product is a success detector that watches a robot's rollout video, reads the task description, and returns a verdict on whether the task was completed - with a subtask-by-subtask breakdown. Founded in 2026 by MIT classmates and childhood friends Claire Mao and Lucy Cai, Instance is part of Y Combinator's Summer 2026 batch and aims to remove humans from the tedious loop of watching robots, grading them, and resetting the scene.
Foundry Robotics
Foundry Robotics is a San Francisco startup building 'The Everything Factory' - an AI-first, assembly-focused contract manufacturer that uses Vision-Language-Action (VLA) foundation models to run flexible robotic assembly cells. Instead of retooling a line for every new product, Foundry aims to let general-purpose robots switch between building drones, robot dogs, battery packs and satellite components on demand. Founded in 2025 by ex-Ghost Robotics and Scale AI robotics lead Adarsh Kulkarni, the company positions itself as a dual-use manufacturer serving both commercial customers and the U.S. Department of Defense, backed by a seed round led by Khosla Ventures and Garuda Ventures.
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.
Figure
Figure is a Bay Area robotics company building autonomous, general-purpose humanoid robots powered by Helix, its in-house vision-language-action model. Founded by Brett Adcock in 2022, Figure is one of a small handful of companies racing to put commercially viable humanoids inside factories, warehouses and - by late 2026 - homes.