F1 aerodynamics expert raises $55M to train robots with chore videos
▼ Summary
– Bercan Kilic achieved his dream job in 2023 designing aerodynamics for Red Bull Racing, but found the engineering impressive yet the purpose shallow.
– His Munich startup, microagi, has raised $55 million, reportedly the largest seed round secured by a German company.
– The funding round was led by Hummingbird, with participation from Northzone.
– The article continues at The Next Web with further details on the startup and its funding.
Bercan Kilic landed his dream role in 2023, shaping aerodynamics for Red Bull Racing during its dominant championship run. He admired the engineering brilliance but found the ultimate purpose hollow. Now, his Munich-based startup, microagi, has closed a $55 million seed round , reportedly the largest ever for a German company. The round was led by Hummingbird, with participation from Northzone and others.
The company’s mission is strikingly different from the high-speed, high-stakes world of Formula 1. Microagi is building a platform that trains robots using a surprisingly simple source: choreography videos. Kilic believes that the precise, repetitive movements captured in dance and instructional clips offer a rich, structured dataset for teaching machines complex physical tasks.
This approach sidesteps the traditional, costly method of manually programming or simulating every robotic motion. Instead, the startup aims to let robots learn by watching and replicating human movement, much like a dancer mastering a routine. The massive seed funding signals strong investor confidence in this unconventional strategy for robot training data and autonomous learning.
Kilic’s journey from F1 engineering to robotics reflects a broader shift in his focus: from optimizing milliseconds on a racetrack to solving the fundamental challenge of making robots adaptable in the real world. With this capital, microagi plans to scale its platform and bring its vision of movement-based robot training closer to commercial reality.
(Source: The Next Web)
