Eka Robotics raises $150 million at $1.45 billion valuation

Eka Robotics closed a $150 million Series A led by a16z and F-Prime, valuing the startup at $1.45 billion post-money, TechCrunch reported. Founded by Pulkit Agrawal and Tuomas Haarnoja, Eka combines a force-sensitive gripper with a model trained through simulated physical interactions. The system uses contact feedback to adjust how it grasps objects. Eka says it reliably picks up objects more than 95% of the time and is conducting industrial pilots involving pick-and-place and wire manipulation. Industrial durability remains a constraint: Agrawal says the gripper is rated for 5 million duty cycles, against a goal of 20 million cycles.