Physical AI Startup Mowito Raises $3 Million to Teach Factory Robots Without Code

Bengaluru and Detroit-based physical AI startup Mowito has raised $3 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Version One Ventures, as it looks to scale its AI models for industrial robot arms and deepen its footprint in the United States.

Who Backed Mowito’s $3 Million Funding Round

Version One Ventures led the round, with participation from All In Capital, Unisol, and iSeed. A notable group of angel investors also joined the cap table, including Soumith Chintala of Thinking Machines Lab, Adarsh Kulkarni of Foundry Robotics, Ashish Kulkarni of Coformer.ai, and Vaibhav Domkundwar of Better Capital.

The fresh capital will go toward three priorities: accelerating Mowito’s expansion in the US, strengthening its engineering and go-to-market teams, and scaling deployments across automotive and electronics manufacturers — two sectors where precision and uptime are non-negotiable.

What Mowito’s Physical AI Actually Does

Founded in 2024, Mowito builds physical AI models that let industrial robot arms learn factory tasks directly from demonstration — essentially, training robots without code, rather than through traditional line-by-line programming. In practice, this means a robot can watch a task being performed and replicate it, instead of engineers hand-coding every motion.

That distinction matters more than it sounds. Manufacturers today typically have to reprogram robots whenever a product, component, or process changes — a slow, expensive cycle that physical AI aims to shrink. Mowito says its software is built to cut down this reprogramming overhead while still holding the precision that production lines demand.

The startup isn’t just running pilots. Mowito’s robots are already deployed on live manufacturing lines at a Fortune 500 automotive company and at one of the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturers, supporting high-precision assembly work across automotive and consumer electronics production.

Founders and Leadership

Mowito’s leadership team is led by co-founder and CEO Puru Rastogi, alongside co-founders Adityanag Nagesh and Safar V. The Bengaluru-Detroit structure reflects the startup’s dual focus: engineering depth in India and proximity to US manufacturing customers in Detroit.

In Their Own Words

“Manufacturing has reached a point where hardware is no longer the bottleneck — software is. Factory robots shouldn’t need to be reprogrammed every time production changes. We believe robots should learn the same way people do: by observing and repeating. This funding allows us to accelerate that vision, expand globally, and bring physical AI to more manufacturing environments,” said Puru Rastogi, co-founder and CEO of Mowito.

Kushal Bhagia, Partner at All In Capital, framed the bet as a category-defining one: “Mowito is building foundational technology that removes one of the biggest barriers to industrial automation — the complexity of robot programming. The team’s technical depth, early customer validation, and vision for physical AI make them exceptionally well positioned to define this category.”

Why This Funding Round Matters for Industrial Automation

Mowito’s raise lands at a moment when “physical AI” — AI systems that perceive and act in the physical world, rather than just generating text or images — is drawing sharp investor interest. Robotics-focused funds and strategic angels from companies like Thinking Machines Lab and Foundry Robotics backing this round signals growing conviction that robot learning, not just robot hardware, is where the next wave of manufacturing efficiency will come from.

It’s part of a broader pattern in India’s robotics and deep-tech space. In recent months, India’s physical AI push has picked up pace, Innefu Labs’ $30M raise showed strong appetite for sovereign AI plays, and Ethereal Machines’ Series B pointed to rising investor confidence in Indian hardware-and-AI hybrids more broadly.

For automotive and electronics manufacturers already under pressure to cut changeover time and labor costs, a system that reduces reprogramming friction could translate directly into faster production changeovers and lower integration costs — the kind of operational upside that tends to catch investor and enterprise buyer attention alike.

What’s Next for Mowito

With $3 million in pre-seed funding now secured, Mowito’s near-term roadmap centers on hiring across engineering and go-to-market functions, deepening its US manufacturing partnerships, and expanding deployments beyond its current automotive and electronics customer base.

Whether Mowito can scale from pilot deployments at a handful of marquee manufacturers to broader industry adoption will be the real test of its physical AI thesis — one that a growing list of investors is clearly willing to bet on.

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Author

Sachin

Sachin Sidharth is a Digital Marketing professional with a master’s degree in Digital Marketing from Coventry University, UK. He has 10+ years of blogging and online marketing experience. He currently heads Digital Acquisition for a leading London-based Fintech firm. At KnowStartup.com He focuses on writing Digital Marketing guides and manages...