The next great robotics foundation model might not be trained on words or videos. It could be trained on force. That is the bet behind Eka Robotics, a Cambridge-based startup that emerged from stealth this year with a $13 million seed round and a founding team drawn from the top labs at MIT and Google DeepMind [PitchBook, 2026]. The company is building an AI-native robotics platform centered on a new class of model it calls Vision-Force-Action, or VFA. While other labs chase language-driven robotics or imitation learning from human videos, Eka argues that force is the fundamental language of the physical world. Its model learns manipulation skills primarily in high-fidelity simulation, with force as the primary input signal [theresanaiforthat.com].
The VFA wedge
Eka's technical wedge is its focus on force-centric training. Its VFA foundation model is designed to treat force feedback as a first-class sensory modality, alongside vision, for learning manipulation policies [clauday.com]. The model is trained in simulation, a scalable and safe environment where it can practice millions of trials without breaking hardware. The company claims this approach yields robots that are not only more capable but also safer, as the model develops an intrinsic understanding of physical constraints and contact dynamics [ekarobotics.com].
A team built for the long game
The founders bring a rare blend of academic depth and large-scale industrial research experience. Pulkit Agrawal is an associate professor at MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, where he leads the Improbable AI Lab [csail.mit.edu]. His co-founder, Tuomas Haarnoja, is a former Google DeepMind robotics researcher credited with shipping much of the lab's high-profile robot soccer work [clauday.com]. The broader team, estimated at around 25 employees, draws from institutions including MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, and companies like Boston Dynamics and Microsoft [LinkedIn].
| Role | Name | Background |
|---|---|---|
| Co-Founder & Professor | Pulkit Agrawal | MIT EECS faculty; leads Improbable AI Lab. |
| Co-Founder | Tuomas Haarnoja | Former Google DeepMind robotics researcher. |
| Senior Mechanical Engineer | Knight Ko | Mechatronics expert specializing in motors, actuators, and electronics packaging. |
The crowded field of generalist robots
Eka is entering a space crowded with well-funded rivals, all chasing the same prize: a general-purpose robotic manipulation system. The competitive landscape includes foundation model players like Physical Intelligence and Skild AI, humanoid robot builders like Figure, and other AI-native robotics startups. Eka's differentiation rests on the primacy of its force-centric training paradigm. The risk, of course, is that simulation-trained policies fail to transfer perfectly to the real world, a classic robotics challenge known as the sim-to-real gap.
The road from simulation to shipment
For now, Eka Robotics remains in a development phase. The company has not publicly named commercial customers or specific industry partners. Its immediate milestones will be technical: demonstrating that its VFA model can perform a breadth of manipulation tasks in the lab and, crucially, on physical robots outside of simulation. The seed funding provides a multi-year runway to tackle these challenges. The hiring of senior engineers like Knight Ko points to a parallel focus on hardware integration [LinkedIn].
What to watch next
The next twelve months will test Eka's core technical hypothesis. Key signals will include published research demonstrating the VFA model's capabilities, partnerships with hardware OEMs or logistics firms, and the expansion of its engineering team. A Series A round will likely follow once those technical milestones are hit.
Sources
- [PitchBook, 2026] Eka Robotics 2026 Company Profile | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/1326584-71
- [theresanaiforthat.com] Vision-Force-Action (VFA) | https://theresanaiforthat.com/model/vision-force-action-vfa/
- [clauday.com] Eka Robotics | https://clauday.com/article/49c4476f-1440-4e89-a0d9-f1f9021353d3
- [ekarobotics.com] Eka Robotics | https://ekarobotics.com/
- [csail.mit.edu, 2026] Pulkit Agrawal receives the IROS Toshio Fukuda Young Professional Award | https://www.csail.mit.edu/news/pulkit-agrawal-receives-iros-toshio-fukuda-young-professional-award
- [LinkedIn] Knight Ko | https://linkedin.com/in/knightko