YZi Labs Leads RoboForce’s $52M Round as NVIDIA Highlights Physical AI
- YZi Labs led a $52 million round to scale RoboForce’s industrial AI robot platform.
- NVIDIA highlighted TITAN as RoboForce’s advanced physical AI in harsh work sites.
- RoboForce says demand exceeds 11,000 robots across solar, mining, and logistics.
YZi Labs has led a $52 million funding round in Silicon Valley-based robotics company RoboForce, backing a business focused on deploying physical AI systems for demanding industrial work. The deal places the investment firm deeper into robotics at a time when industrial operators are grappling with labor shortages, project delays, and rising pressure to automate difficult field tasks.
The round also comes with a governance move: Ella Zhang, managing partner and head of YZi Labs, has joined the company’s board. The announcement gained broader attention after RoboForce was highlighted by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang at GTC in Washington, D.C. In that presentation, Huang pointed to AI-driven robotics as part of a wider shift toward intelligent factories and industrial automation.
Against that backdrop, the financing gives RoboForce new capital to expand its robot platform, scale manufacturing, and move pilot projects into larger commercial deployments across sectors such as solar, data centers, shipping, mining, and manufacturing.
Funding Arrives as Industrial Labor Gaps Deepen
The investment is tied closely to a measurable problem in industrial operations. According to the company’s official report on X, an estimated 53 gigawatts of U.S. solar projects were delayed in 2024 due to worker shortages and equipment wait times.
That figure underscores the challenge facing industries that rely on labor for repetitive, physically demanding, and safety-critical work. To address this issue, RoboForce says it is building systems meant to operate where labor is hardest to source and retain.
The company has framed the issue as a widening gap between industrial growth and available human labor. Consequently, its target environments include large-scale energy sites, logistics operations, and resource-heavy workplaces where heat, endurance requirements, and precision demands often slow project timelines.
TITAN Targets Harsh Work Sites With Precision
At the center of the company’s push is TITAN, a physical AI robot designed for industrial settings that require both endurance and accuracy. RoboForce says the system is built to perform with millimeter-level precision while handling work in harsh environments.
That positioning is central to its pitch: robots not as general-purpose machines, but as specialized labor systems for jobs that are repetitive, dangerous, or difficult to staff. RoboForce adds that each deployed machine feeds operational data back into its models, creating what it describes as a physical AI data flywheel intended to improve performance over time.
NVIDIA Spotlight Strengthens Commercial Momentum
The company’s visibility increased further when Huang referenced TITAN during GTC 2025. That moment added external recognition to a business already claiming strong early market demand.
Per reports, RoboForce acknowledges it has received letters of intent representing more than 11,000 robot orders, a figure that suggests customer interest is moving beyond concept-stage discussions. RoboForce also confirms that it is working closely with NVIDIA across several layers of its technology stack.
The company cited NVIDIA Jetson Thor for edge computing, Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab for simulation and robot learning, Cosmos for synthetic data generation, and OSMO for cloud-to-edge orchestration. Together, those tools are meant to support both faster training cycles and more scalable deployment.
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Why YZi Labs Backed the Deal
YZi Labs said its decision to lead the round was shaped by four factors: the founder’s execution record, the engineering depth of the team, existing market demand, and the broader progress of embodied AI. The firm described RoboForce as a company operating at the intersection of robotics, advanced computing, and commercial need.
The new capital is expected to support three priorities: advancing the robot foundation model, scaling the physical AI platform and manufacturing base, and converting active pilot programs into production rollouts.For YZi Labs, the transaction extends its investment focus from digital infrastructure into AI infrastructure, robotics, and biotechnology. For RoboForce, on the other hand, it provides fresh funding and a higher public profile as industrial automation moves closer to large-scale implementation.
