Proception, founded by Jay Li, a former technical lead on Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot program, has settled a lawsuit with Tesla over alleged trade secret theft. The company has now raised $11 million in a seed round led by First Round Capital to develop its high-dexterity robotic hand.
The robotic hand has 22 degrees of freedom and multiple joints per finger, enabling a wide range of dexterous motions. Proception's approach to gathering data involves using a glove laden with sensors, which allows for human hand interaction data to be captured without requiring a robot in the loop.
The company plans to become the top hand supplier to other companies that don't want to spend the time or resources developing dextrous manipulation. With the new funding, Proception is shipping its first batch of robotic hands to researchers and robotics companies, and is opening up to wider orders.
