Swiss Startup Mimic Raises €13.8M To Make Industrial Robots As Dexterous As Humans

The round also included participation from Founderful, 1st Kind, 10X Founders, 2100 Ventures, and the Sequoia Scout Fund, bringing mimic’s total funding to over $20M.

mimic builds physical AI systems that allow robots to perform highly dexterous tasks beyond traditional machine capabilities. The new funding will help enhance its foundation AI model, improve robotic hand technology, and scale collaborations with global partners.

According to mimic, the new funding will help scale its technology across various industries that require adaptable and intelligent robotic systems.

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Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, General Partner at Speedinvest, says, “At Speedinvest, we’ve always believed that Europe’s strength lies in marrying world-class engineering with foundational research. With mimic, we see exactly that: a platform that unlocks human-level dexterity with frontier AI and solves billion-dollar problems on factory floors today. This is the moment Europe steps forward to compete and lead in the new era of AI and robotics”

mimic is building physical AI systems that teach robots to perform tasks by learning directly from human demonstrations. Skilled operators wear custom devices that capture motion and interaction data during real factory work without disrupting production. This data trains AI models through imitation learning, enabling robots to mimic human actions and adapt to changes in real time.

“Humanoids are exciting, but there aren’t many industrial scenarios where the full-body form factor truly adds value,” says Stephan-Daniel Gravert, co-founder and CPO at mimic. “Our approach pairs AI-driven dexterous robotic hands with proven, off-the-shelf robot arms to deliver the same capabilities in a way that is much simpler, more reliable and rapidly deployable.”

The company is currently developing a foundation AI model and advanced robotic hands that enable human-like manipulation across industries such as manufacturing, assembly and logistics. These systems are built to operate autonomously in environments originally designed for humans.

“Our general-purpose AI models allow us to automate manual labour in a way that simply was not possible before,” says Elvis Nava, co-founder and CTO at mimic. “Thanks to our unique focus on human-like dexterity and human data, we are competitive at the robot foundation model layer as well as the application layer.”

mimic was founded in 2024 by Stefan Weirich (CEO), Stephan-Daniel Gravert (CPO), Elvis Nava (CTO), Benedek Forrai (Founding Engineer), and Robert Katzschmann (Scientific Advisor).

mimic is collaborating with manufacturers and logistics providers to integrate physical AI into large-scale operations. Its technology is currently being piloted by Fortune 500 companies, global automotive firms, and multinational logistics operators to automate tasks requiring human-like skill and coordination.

A spin-off from ETH Zurich, mimic has a 25-member team of engineers, researchers, and operators. The company has received non-dilutive funding from Switzerland’s federal innovation agency and participated in the AWS Generative AI Accelerator, which supports early-stage companies applying advanced AI to industrial use cases.

Stefan Weirich, co-founder & CEO at mimic, says, “We’re at an inflection point in robotics where learning-based systems meet real industrial needs. We make dexterity deployable at scale, closing the gap between what AI can do in the lab and what factories actually need. Europe has the talent, the infrastructure, and the demand, and we’re building the company that brings all of this together.”

Clément Vanden Driessche, Partner at Elaia, mentions, “Elaia is thrilled to lead the seed round in mimic. The world-class team at mimic is addressing one of the most challenging problems in physical AI: dexterous manipulation. mimic’s breakthrough approach integrates a proprietary robotic hand, state-of-the-art foundation models for robotics, and novel data acquisition and training methods.” Vincent Faber, Investment Manager at Elaia, adds, “This enables autonomous, versatile manipulation and unlocks a previously untapped segment of the automation market, where the demand for flexible solutions continues to grow.”

About Mimic

Founded in Zurich, mimic builds embodied intelligence scalable AI models that enable universal robotic manipulation. Its technology allows companies to intuitively automate complex and repetitive manual tasks across industries, from retail and logistics to manufacturing, bringing human-like dexterity and adaptability to machines.