Perceptyne

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Perceptyne is an Indian deep-tech robotics startup based in Hyderabad, Telangana, that designs and builds AI-first semi-humanoid robots for industrial manufacturing. Founded in 2021 by Raviteja Chivukula, Mrutyunjaya Nadiminti, and Jagga Raju Nadimpalli, the company develops vertically integrated robotic platforms that combine artificial intelligence, multimodal sensing, and dexterous end-effectors aimed at automating fine-motor assembly tasks on factory floors. Its flagship products are the dual-arm PR-34D and the single-arm PR-9D, both targeted at automotive and electronics manufacturing customers. The company markets itself as building robots that are "as flexible and adaptable as humans" and positions its systems between rigid industrial robots and full superhumanoid platforms. Perceptyne says its robots can learn a new task through teleoperation and be dropped into an existing assembly line in roughly 20 to 30 days, versus the 6 to 12 months typical of conventional automation, and it offers them both for outright purchase and as a robots-as-a-service subscription.^{[1][2][3][17][19]}

Perceptyne came to wider notice in October 2024, when it closed a $3 million seed round co-led by Endiya Partners and Yali Capital, with participation from Whiteboard Capital and a group of angel investors that included founders of Indian deep-tech companies such as Ather Energy and Skyroot Aerospace. The PR-34D was later named a finalist at the 2025 Humanoid Robotics Industry Awards in the Groundbreaking Technology category, alongside global names such as NVIDIA and AgiBot. By 2026, which its founders described as a potential "year of deployment," the company was moving from paid pilots with multinational manufacturers toward larger commercial rollouts in India, with plans to expand into the United States and European markets.^{[3][4][5][18][19]}

History

Perceptyne was incorporated in 2021 as Perceptyne Robots Pvt. Ltd. According to founder interviews, the original concept was sketched out by Raviteja Chivukula nearly a decade earlier, when he was an intern at a vending machine company and began thinking about intelligent robotic arms that could pick and dispense products without rigid mechanical fixtures. The company's first prototypes followed in 2022 and 2023, and operations began at scale once the founding team came together in Hyderabad. Perceptyne describes its mission as building "AI powered robots that empower countless organizations / individuals bridge the physical skill availability gap they face today," with a stated vision of "universal access to intelligent physical assistance".^[1][6][9]

The early years focused on developing in-house hardware and software stacks rather than integrating off-the-shelf industrial robot arms. According to investor disclosures, the team designed its own actuators, motor controllers, gearboxes, and firmware so that the platform would not depend on imported components. This vertical integration is a recurring theme in how Perceptyne describes itself and how investors describe the company. Endiya Partners has stated that the founders' "engineering depth and domain experience across aerospace, automotive, and electronics" was a key factor in the firm's investment decision.^[3][7]

By 2025, Perceptyne had grown to a team of roughly 22 employees according to data aggregator Tracxn, with the company itself reporting 30 or more team members across mechanical and embedded systems engineering, AI and robotics research, product design, firmware, and operations. Beyond the three founders, the company's leadership includes lead engineer Pradeep Reddy Madireddy. The startup operates from Hyderabad and reported revenue of approximately INR 2.07 crore for the financial year ending 31 March 2024.^[8][9]

Founders

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Public profiles describe Mrutyunjaya Nadiminti's surname inconsistently, with some early outlets calling him "Mrutyunjaya Sastry". Perceptyne's own website and the company's filings list him as Mrutyunjaya Nadiminti.^[2][9][11]

Product roadmap

Perceptyne initially launched with two semi-humanoid robotic platforms, the PR-34D and the PR-9D, both aimed at fixed assembly stations rather than mobile humanoid form factors. Through 2025, the company expanded its product lineup with a family of platforms that share core technology but differ in form factor and target task. Perceptyne's website describes the following products:

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Perceptyne refers to its broader platform family using the names Omni, Duo, Uno, PhI, and Sync on its corporate website, while public funding announcements and trade-press coverage continue to reference the original PR-34D and PR-9D. The company brands PR-PhI (short for Physical Intelligence) as the software layer that supplies perception and skills to its arms.^[2][12][18]

How does Perceptyne's technology work?

Perceptyne's robots are designed around what the company calls a "full-stack, AI-first robotics platform". The platform combines computer vision, force and tactile sensing, articulate manipulators, and AI software for perception, motion planning, and skill execution. Rather than program specific motions, customers train the robot on new tasks through teleoperation, with the AI system generalising those demonstrations into repeatable skills.^{[2][3][7][13]}

Multimodal sensing

The PR-34D and PR-9D integrate three sensing modalities into a single perception stack:

• Vision. Cameras provide object recognition, pose estimation, and obstacle detection. Trade press has noted that the platform uses NVIDIA foundation models for vision processing during early development.^[1][2]
• Force feedback. Joint-level force and torque sensing allows the robot to detect contact, regulate insertion forces, and stop motion when unexpected resistance is encountered.^[2][13][17]
• Tactile sensing. Sensors embedded in the fingertips and hands give the robot information about local contact and grip status during fine manipulation.^[2][13]

The combination of these modalities allows the robot to operate in unstructured assembly environments where parts may be slightly mispresented, where lighting may vary, and where touch is necessary to succeed at tasks like cable mating, snap fitting, or screw starting.^[2][13]

Manipulators and end-effectors

The PR-34D uses two seven-degree-of-freedom arms, with three degrees of freedom at the shoulder, one at the elbow, and three at the wrist. Each arm is fitted with a three-fingered hand that has 10 degrees of freedom and integrates tactile sensing. Trade press has reported the dual-arm platform has a combined payload capacity of around 6 kg, making it suitable for precision assembly rather than heavy lifting.^[2][13]

Perceptyne's hand design uses three fingers rather than the five-finger anthropomorphic hands common on full humanoid platforms. The company has stated this choice reflects the practical demands of factory assembly tasks: most production-line manipulations can be accomplished with three opposable digits, and reducing finger count simplifies kinematics, reduces failure modes, and lowers cost.^[1][13]

AI and teleoperation

A distinctive feature of Perceptyne's stack is the use of AI-led teleoperation as a training method. Operators teleoperate the robot through new tasks, and the system records the demonstrations as training data for its skill models. Once a skill is learned, the robot performs it autonomously and improves through continued practice. This approach is sometimes referred to in the company's marketing as low-code or no-code trainability, in the sense that customers do not need to write robot programs in a traditional sense to deploy a new task.^[1][2][7]

The company has also stated that it uses NVIDIA Isaac Sim for simulation and pre-deployment testing of skills, allowing engineers to validate behaviour in a virtual factory before installation. This pairs the in-house hardware with a widely used third-party simulation environment from NVIDIA.^[12]

Vertical integration

Perceptyne builds the majority of its robotics stack in house. In an interview the company said roughly 70 to 80 percent of the critical components in its robots are designed in-house, covering:

• Actuators and gearboxes for the joints.
• Motor controllers and embedded firmware.
• Mechanical structure and end-effectors.
• Perception and AI software, including the teleoperation interface.

The company markets this vertical integration as a way to control cost, iterate quickly on the platform, and reduce dependence on imported deep-tech components. Endiya Partners has cited the vertical integration explicitly as part of its investment thesis.^[7][12][17]

How fast can a Perceptyne robot be deployed?

Perceptyne emphasises drop-in deployment as a commercial differentiator. According to the company and its investors, robots can be installed at existing assembly stations without modifying the surrounding line, reducing integration time "from quarters to weeks". In a 2025 interview the company put concrete numbers on that claim, saying its robots can be deployed in about 20 to 30 days rather than the 6 to 12 months typical of conventional automation, and that customers see up to a 40 percent cost reduction and a 20 to 30 percent productivity improvement in electronics manufacturing services and automotive applications. Perceptyne's website markets the same idea as compressing timelines "from 6 months to 10 days" with "zero production downtime", installing robots without halting production.^{[3][7][11][12][17]}

The target customer is mid-scale and large manufacturers in electronics manufacturing, automotive components, and consumer goods, where labour shortages, rising wages, and high mix and low volume product runs make traditional fixed automation impractical. Named or described applications include PCB handling, bin picking, fastening, torchlight assembly, headlight assembly, brake component assembly, and mobile phone assembly.^{[1][3][9][17]}

What is Perceptyne's business model?

Perceptyne sells its robots through two commercial routes, according to 2026 coverage. Customers can buy systems outright as a capital expenditure, or take them under an operating-expenditure model in which the robots are deployed as a service, a form of robotics-as-a-service priced on usage or performance. The dual model is intended to lower the barrier to adoption for manufacturers that prefer to treat automation as an operating cost tied to output rather than a large upfront purchase.^[19]

The company frames its overall value proposition around eliminating repetitive and hazardous factory work. Perceptyne's website states: "The future is about eliminating dull and dangerous tasks for humans. Let machines handle the grind, so people can build, think and lead without fatigue and fear".^[12]

How is Perceptyne funded?

As of 2026, Perceptyne has raised approximately $4.31 million across at least three funding rounds from 22 investors, according to data aggregator Tracxn. The company has not disclosed its valuation. Reported funding events are summarised below.

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The seed round announced on 14 October 2024 was co-led by Endiya Partners and Yali Capital. According to public coverage, Endiya was represented by Raghav Gupta, who described Perceptyne as building "a drop-in, generic automation solution that learns through AI-led tele-operation". Karthik Madathil, partner at Yali Capital, described Perceptyne as having "unique multi-faceted technology to deliver robotic solutions precisely tuned to sunrise sectors of India's growing economy". The company stated that proceeds would be used to ramp up product development, customer acquisition, and growth.^[3][4][11]

Perceptyne's pre-seed round in May 2024 was led by Venture Catalysts and notably included founders of other Indian deep-tech hardware companies as angels, including Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain of Ather Energy and Pawan Chandana and Bharat Daka of Skyroot Aerospace. The participation of T-Hub, the Hyderabad-based startup incubator, has tied Perceptyne to the broader Telangana deep-tech ecosystem.^[14][15]

Who are Perceptyne's customers?

Perceptyne has not publicly named individual customers, but it has disclosed several details about its commercial traction:

• The company has stated that it is in pilot discussions with multinational companies in the electronics manufacturing and automotive sectors, with multiple paid pilots running in 2025.^[1][3]
• According to coverage in StartupTalky, Perceptyne reported that four global companies had initiated paid pilots, with focus markets in Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bangalore.^[2]
• The company's stated near-term plan is to deploy four to five robots in India before physically expanding to the United States market, with European markets also identified as a target.^{[1][13][18][19]}
• Perceptyne has named additional target sectors beyond automotive and electronics, including ecommerce warehouses and food-industry plants.^[1]

In parallel, Perceptyne has continued to develop later prototype generations of its platform. Public coverage in 2025 referred to the company building a "Version 4" prototype in-house for internal testing and pilot deployment. In January 2026 the founders described the coming year as a potential "year of deployment," signalling a shift from paid pilots toward larger commercial rollouts.^[13][18]

Recognition and awards

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Where does Perceptyne fit in the robotics market?

Perceptyne operates in a segment of the robotics market that sits between traditional industrial robot arms and full humanoid robots such as Tesla Optimus and Figure AI platforms. Investors have framed the company's opportunity in terms of two trends:

• Global industrial robotics growth. Endiya Partners has cited an industry projection that the global industrial robotics market could reach roughly $41 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate of around 12 percent. Perceptyne and its founders have separately referenced an estimate that the market may grow from about $17 billion in 2024 to about $29 billion by 2029.^[1][7]
• India's manufacturing acceleration. Investors have argued that India's adoption of robotics is growing faster than the global average, with growth rates above 20 percent CAGR in some segments, driven by rising labour costs, workforce shortages, supply chain reshoring, and government policy initiatives such as Production Linked Incentive schemes and the broader Make in India agenda.^[7]

Perceptyne positions itself as part of an emerging cohort of Indian deep-tech robotics companies competing in segments where Western and Chinese players have historically led. Coverage in trade press has framed the company as a test case for whether the Indian market is ready to absorb domestically built collaborative robots and semi-humanoid platforms at scale.^[1][13]

Product specifications

PR-34D

The PR-34D is the company's flagship dual-arm semi-humanoid robot, designed for tasks requiring precision and dexterity such as component assembly, quality inspection, and handling intricate objects.

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PR-9D

The PR-9D is a single-arm variant of the platform aimed at applications where one manipulator is sufficient, offering a more compact and cost-effective option for specific manufacturing tasks.

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PR-Omni

PR-Omni is described on the company website as a mobile semi-humanoid platform that combines dual 7-DOF arms with a holonomic mobile base. According to the website, the platform offers a combined payload of around 10 kg and is intended for applications that require both manipulation and intra-facility mobility.^[12]

See also

• PR-34D
• Humanoid robots
• Humanoid robot
• Industrial robot
• Collaborative robot
• Robotics
• Robotics-as-a-service
• Humanoid robot deployments
• Tesla Optimus
• Figure AI
• AgiBot
• NVIDIA
• Computer vision
• Degrees of freedom

References

1. "Can Perceptyne's Robot Army Become The New Growth Engine For 'Make In India'?" Inc42. ↩
2. "From Vision to Intelligent Machines: Raviteja Chivukula on Reimagining Robotics with Perceptyne." StartupTalky. ↩
3. "AI focused robotic startup Perceptyne secures $3 million in seed funding." Business Standard, 14 October 2024. ↩
4. "Robotics Startup Perceptyne Bags $3 Mn From Endiya Partners, Yali Capital & Others." Inc42. ↩
5. "Perceptyne Named Finalist at Global Humanoid Robotics Awards." WebIndia123, 15 October 2025. ↩
6. "From Vision to Intelligent Machines: Raviteja Chivukula on Reimagining Robotics with Perceptyne." StartupTalky. ↩
7. "Why We Invested in Perceptyne: Powering India's Manufacturing Leap with AI-First Robotics." Endiya Partners. ↩
8. "Perceptyne 2026 Company Profile, Team, Funding, Competitors & Financials." Tracxn. ↩
9. "About Perceptyne." Perceptyne corporate website. ↩
10. "Jagga Raju Nadimpalli profile." Perceptyne corporate website / F6S. ↩
11. "AI-first Robotics Startup Perceptyne Raises $3m Co-led by Endiya Partners and Yali Capital." IndianWeb2, October 2024. ↩
12. Perceptyne corporate website. ↩
13. "Perceptyne Raises $3M for Robots: Is The Indian Market Ready?" Tice News. ↩
14. "Deeptech robotics startup Perceptyne raises $3 Mn in seed round." Entrackr, October 2024. ↩
15. "Venture Catalysts Leads Pre-Seed Funding Round for Perceptyne." Outlook Business, 1 May 2024. ↩
16. "AI-first robotics startup Perceptyne raises $3 million in a Seed round." Indian Startup News. ↩
17. "Perceptyne's Indigenous Humanoids Aim to Redefine Global Robotics." TimesTech. ↩
18. "Indian startup Perceptyne's founders on why 2026 could be the year of deployment of robots." India Tech Report, January 2026. ↩
19. "Perceptyne: AI robots for factory automation." YourStory, April 2026. ↩