Originals · Startup · Startups & Fintech
Tensrai raises Rs 3.4 crore to retrofit existing machines with autonomy
The Hyderabad physical AI startup wants factories and warehouses to add self-driving skills to equipment they already own.
Tensrai, a Hyderabad-based physical AI startup, has raised Rs 3.4 crore in a pre-seed round from India Accelerator, Finvolve, Hyderabad Angels and other angel investors, Entrackr reported on October 29. The company said it will use the money for technology development, engineering and deployment, and expansion in India and abroad.
Tensrai is building a single autonomy platform that can be fitted to industrial and commercial robots, vehicles and machines. According to Entrackr and Newzchain, it combines camera-first navigation, AI-based localisation, reasoning powered by vision-language models, robotic arm control, and a teach-and-deploy mode based on vision-language-action models, so machines can learn a task and repeat it with limited human help.
The pitch is retrofitting: rather than asking a business to buy new robots, Tensrai wants to add autonomy to suitable equipment it already has. Its first targets are material handling and cleaning in factories, warehouses, airports, hospitals, malls and office campuses. It is also developing a general-purpose mobile manipulator that pairs a moving base with robotic arms for handling, cleaning, manufacturing and construction work.
The company was co-founded by Sai Nikhil Rao Gona, Venkata Sai Charan Chalamalasetty, Harshith Uppalapati and Vivek Datta. It plans to earn through robot sales, retrofits, Robot-as-a-Service subscriptions and custom projects.
