London robotics startup Machenta raises $40M seed round

London robotics startup Machenta, co-founded by Imperial College professor Edward Johns and his PhD student Vitalis Vosylius, has emerged from stealth with a $40M seed round co-led by Creandum and Union Square Ventures — the largest seed round for a UK robotics company to date. Its AI model is trained entirely in simulation and lets a robot perform new tasks such as packaging, assembly and tidying after seeing them just once.

• $40M seed round co-led by Creandum and Union Square Ventures
• Model trained only in simulation, without real-world data
• Robot learns a task after a single demonstration
• Team of about a dozen people based in London's King's Cross