Union City, California / Robotics & Physical AI / Est. 2018
Third Wave
Automation
The autonomous forklift that drives itself - and knows the exact moment to hand the wheel back to a human.
The autonomous forklift that drives itself - and knows the exact moment to hand the wheel back to a human.
Picture a distribution center after midnight. The forklift glides down a 30-foot canyon of stacked pallets, finds its load, lifts, pivots, sets it down to the centimeter, and moves on. Nobody is sitting in it. Then it reaches an edge case - a shrink-wrapped pallet leaning wrong, a spill where there shouldn't be one - and instead of guessing, it does something most robots are too proud to do. It asks for help.
Somewhere quieter, an operator at a desk takes the controls, sorts it out in under a minute, and hands the machine back to itself. That handshake - machine to human and back - is the entire thesis of Third Wave Automation. Not a robot that pretends to be perfect. A robot honest enough to raise its hand.
Most automation companies sell a binary: either a human runs the machine, or the machine runs itself. Third Wave sells the dimmer switch in between. Its TWA Reach forklifts move fluidly across four modes, and the same fleet can be tuned to whatever a warehouse actually needs that day.
The truck plans, perceives and places on its own using lidar and ML.
Stuck on an edge case, it calls a human who nudges it past the snag.
A person drives it fully - from the safety of an office chair.
An operator climbs in and drives it like any other reach truck.
A line of hybrid autonomous high-reach forklifts built to operate in all four modes - the physical body of the system.
The AI brain that lets the truck drive itself, recognize its own limits, and learn from every assist over time.
Fleet management that lets a single remote operator monitor and supervise up to ten forklifts at once.
Automotive-grade 3D lidar perception delivering cm-accuracy mapping and 360-degree obstacle detection.
"The combination of Third Wave software and Raymond's best-in-class equipment creates an unmatched automated solution."- Arshan Poursohi, Co-Founder & CEO
The founding team worked together at Toyota Research Institute and inside Google's robotics programs before deciding the most useful robot in the world might be a forklift.
Cognitive science at UC Berkeley, then robotics and software at Toyota Research Institute and Google. Sets the company's strategic direction.
A deep robotics and machine-learning background spanning Google Research and Toyota Research Institute. Based in Oakland, California.
A career roboticist out of Google's robotics program and TRI, focused on making the autonomy actually work on the warehouse floor.
From Toyota Ventures to Woven Capital to a 2026 commercial tie-up with Raymond, the world's largest forklift maker has steadily deepened its bet on a company building the brains for the next forklift.
Investors: Woven Capital (Toyota) · Norwest Venture Partners · Innovation Endeavors · Qualcomm Ventures · Eclipse Ventures · Toyota Ventures
The Raymond Corporation (Toyota Material Handling North America) teams up to embed Third Wave's physical AI across lift-truck fleets, starting with an automated Raymond Swing-Reach truck sold through Raymond's Solutions and Support Centers.
Led by Toyota's Woven Capital with Innovation Endeavors, Norwest and Qualcomm Ventures returning - capital aimed at scaling the platform and expanding manufacturing of TWA Reach.
A live demo of the autonomous forklifts at MODEX 2024, alongside the debut of the TWA Extended Reach truck for higher racking.
"Their autonomous forklifts will help us fulfill customer orders more efficiently."- Brien Downie, President, Holman Logistics (customer)