Proception (Proception.AI)
Component
Palo Alto startup building high-dexterity 22-DoF robot hands and the sensor glove that trains them.
Proception builds dexterous robotic hands and the data hardware around them. Its first product, ProHand 1.0, is a 22-degree-of-freedom tendon-driven hand with force and tactile sensing (the company cites ~0.1N resolution); it also ships a sensor-laden glove that captures human hand-interaction data without a robot in the loop and doubles as the sensing skin for the hand itself. The pitch is that dexterous manipulation needs both hardware and scalable data, so the glove is a data engine, not an accessory. Proception announced an $11M seed led by First Round Capital with Y Combinator and BoxGroup in June 2026 and began shipping its first batch of hands to researchers and robotics companies (specs and shipment volume are company-reported).
Research mapping
Physical AI / Actuation & Motion Control (L8) / Component
Evidence boundary
Original analysis and independent corroboration remain under development. Commercial scale and durable technical advantage remain under review.
What makes it defensible
Hardware plus scalable human-hand data: a 22-DoF tactile hand whose own sensing skin doubles as a glove that captures training data without a robot in the loop.
Position in the stack: Hand and manipulation-data supplier to humanoid OEMs and research labs - it aims to be the hand vendor other robot makers buy rather than build; defensibility is the hand mechanics plus the egocentric interaction dataset the glove generates.
Who buys it
Named customers: research labs and robotics companies (first shipments)
Founding team
Jay Li — Founder & CEO — Former technical lead on Tesla's Optimus humanoid programme; left in September 2024 to found Proception and build robot hands, with earlier engineering roles at Apple and Aurora.
Jianxiang (Jack) Xu — Co-founder & CTO — Former Tesla Optimus engineer with prior roles at Apple, Aurora, Aeva and Trexo; co-founded Proception in 2024 per Dealroom.
SourceFinancing detail
- Last round
- Seed (Jun 2026)
Investors: First Round Capital, Y Combinator, BoxGroup
Mapped funds and investors
Direct relationships supported by published evidence.
Reported holdings as-of
No sourced relationships mapped yet.
Disclosed investment history
No sourced relationships mapped yet.
Showing up to four relationships in each group. ETF weights describe the fund’s portfolio, not ownership of this company. Private investment history does not establish current ownership.
Evidence & media
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Robot hand company settles Tesla trade secret suit and announces $11M raise
What this source supports: TechCrunch reports Proception settled a Tesla trade-secret suit and raised an $11M seed.
What it does not establish: Does not show unit economics, customer contracts, or shipped volumes.
Source -
Tesla trade secret suit settled as robot hand startup raises $11M
What this source supports: Memeburn corroborates the $11M seed and the Tesla trade-secret settlement.
What it does not establish: No valuation or customer commitments.
Source -
Proception: ProHand 22-DoF hand and ProGlove data glove milestones; $11M seed led by First Round (undated retrospective)
Source