How much funding has Proception raised?

Proception has raised $11.5M in total funding. Their latest funding round was Seed. Key investors include First Round Capital, Y Combinator, BoxGroup.

Where is Proception headquartered?

Proception is headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States. The company has a team of 11-50 people.

What does Proception do?

Proception operates in the Robotics / Embodied AI sector. Developer of advanced dexterous robotic hands (ProHand 1.0) and wearable data collection systems (ProGlove) for humanoid robots and manipulation research. Building the most dexterous human-like robotic hands combined with scalable data collection (ProGlove) to solve the bottleneck of contact-rich manipulation for humanoid robots.

When was Proception founded?

Proception was founded in 2024. It is based in Mountain View, California, United States.

How much funding has Proception raised?

Proception has raised $11.5M in total funding. Key investors include First Round Capital, Y Combinator, BoxGroup.

Who is the CEO of Proception?

Jay Li is the CEO of Proception. The company was founded in 2024.

Where is Proception located?

Proception is headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States.

What funding stage is Proception at?

Proception is currently at the Seed stage.

How many employees does Proception have?

Proception has approximately 11-50 employees.

Proception

Category: Robotics / Embodied AI

Developer of advanced dexterous robotic hands (ProHand 1.0) and wearable data collection systems (ProGlove) for humanoid robots and manipulation research. Proception was founded in 2024. The company is led by Jay Li. Based in Mountain View, California, United States. Team size: 11-50. Total funding raised: $11.5M. Latest round: Seed. Key investors include First Round Capital, Y Combinator, BoxGroup.

Founded: 2024
Headquarters: Mountain View, California, United States
Team size: 11-50
Total funding: $11.5M

Value proposition

Building the most dexterous human-like robotic hands combined with scalable data collection (ProGlove) to solve the bottleneck of contact-rich manipulation for humanoid robots.

Products and solutions

ProHand 1.0 (22-degree-of-freedom, tendon-driven robotic hand with integrated skin-like sensors for dexterous manipulation), ProGlove (wearable sensor glove system for collecting human hand-interaction data to train robotic systems)

Unique value

Only company combining human-form dexterous hardware (22-DOF tendon-driven hand with skin-like sensors) with a scalable human-data-collection system (ProGlove) that captures contact-rich manipulation data without requiring a robot in the loop.

Target customer

Robotics researchers, humanoid robot companies, AI labs working on dexterous manipulation and embodied AI.

Industries served

Robotics, Humanoid Robots, AI Research, Embodied AI, Manufacturing

Technology advantage

22-degree-of-freedom tendon-driven actuation; skin-like contact sensors integrated into both hand and glove; human-hand-inspired kinematics designed with hand surgeons; scalable data collection via ProGlove without requiring robots in the loop; YC W25 alumni with ex-Tesla Optimus engineering team.

How they differentiate

ProHand's 22-DOF tendon-driven design with integrated tactile sensing closely mimics human hand kinematics; ProGlove enables data collection 10x more efficiently than teleoperation; end-to-end hardware + data platform approach vs. pure hardware competitors.

Main competitors

Shadow Robot (UK - Shadow Dexterous Hand), Clone Robotics (Clone Hand), Xynova (China - humanoid robot hands), Genesis AI (Europe - wheeled robot with dexterous hands), Wonik Robotics (South Korea - Allegro Hand)

Key partnerships

Autodesk (Fusion design tools for ProHand development), Y Combinator (W25 batch)

Notable customers

Shipping first batch to AI research teams and institutions (specific names not publicly disclosed)

Major milestones

Founded 2024, Accepted into Y Combinator W25 batch, $500K pre-seed from YC (Mar 2025), Tesla trade secret lawsuit filed (Jun 2025), Lawsuit settled and dismissed (Jun 2026), $11M seed round led by First Round Capital (Jun 2026), ProHand 1.0 and ProGlove launched and shipping to researchers (Jun 2026), First exhibition at ICRA 2026

Market positioning

Early-stage startup positioning as the leading supplier of high-dexterity robotic hands to the humanoid robotics ecosystem, betting that most humanoid companies will buy hands rather than build them in-house.

Geographic focus

Global (US-based, competing with European and Asian dexterous hand developers)

About Jay Li

Ex-Tesla Optimus Technical Lead; Stanford University alumni. Former manager on Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot program.

Official website: https://www.proception.ai/