Haply Robotics raises $16 million to construct the “steering wheels” for bodily AI

How the Montréal startup plans to personal the contact layer of robotics.

How do robots contact and really feel? As AI methods enter the bodily world—from robots on the manufacturing facility flooring to surgical arms in working rooms—the info related to that query is changing into an increasing number of precious.

“There are going to be 10 billion robots on the planet by 2050. They’re going to want steering wheels.”

That has fuelled the work of Montréal-based startup Haply Robotics since 2018. The haptic expertise firm, which makes precision controllers for interacting with 3D objects, is trying to scale up its hardware-software platform that controls the movement of AI methods interacting with the actual world.

“There are going to be 10 billion robots on the planet by 2050,” Haply co-founder and CEO Colin Gallacher claimed to BetaKit. “They’re going to want steering wheels.”

Final week, the corporate closed $11.75 million USD ($16 million CAD) in fairness as a “seed-plus” financing spherical, led by Atlanta-based Sound Media Ventures. Taking part traders included the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, the South Korean Hanwha Asset Administration Enterprise Fund, Toronto deep tech fund Two Small Fish Ventures, and a follow-on funding from the BDC Capital Deep Tech Enterprise Fund (which has since wound down additional investments following layoffs).

The brand new funds, which Haply will use to gasoline its plans for growth, manufacturing, and hiring, carry its whole raised to greater than $20 million CAD. It had beforehand obtained assist from the federal authorities underneath Revolutionary Options Canada.

Haply’s {hardware} units and related software program file stress, resistance, and interplay forces in actual time—permitting machines to “really feel” these forces, too, and adapt their motions accordingly.

“Like people, robots will in the end want the equal of 5 senses,” Allen Lau, co-founder and working accomplice at Two Small Fish Ventures, informed BetaKit in an e-mail. “The potential is that Haply can turn out to be one of many defining, world-class firms that owns the contact layer in robotics, and that’s extraordinarily thrilling.”

The corporate has developed units just like the Inverse3, a controller system that information motion enter with microscopic precision, and the Minverse, which is a smaller, extra transportable model of the Inverse3. The manufacturing occurs at its multi-level Montréal headquarters, tucked subsequent to the stylish Bar Darling, within the metropolis’s Plateau neighbourhood.

Although Gallacher didn’t share Haply’s present annual income, the corporate claimed it’s rising by 150-percent yr over yr. The corporate has additionally generated buzz by profitable awards on the Las Vegas Client Electronics Present, together with The Verge’s 2026 Most Enjoyable award.

In a latest go to to Haply’s Montréal workplace, BetaKit examined a few of its 3D precision mouses. The 3D controller is enjoyable to make use of and offers a placing quantity of stress suggestions, permitting the consumer to “really feel” exact brushstrokes scraping in opposition to a digital canvas, or the grooves of a domino, whereas remote-controlling a robotic arm.

The corporate says it has greater than 150 prospects, 30 of that are Fortune 500 firms. Haply has repeatedly collaborated with chipmaker Nvidia, codeveloping demos for CES and different commerce reveals, whereas constructing purposes on high of the tech large’s Omniverse bodily AI platform.

The purposes of Haply’s expertise vary from designing video video games to performing surgical procedure to flying navy drones.
Bodily AI—put merely, AI that interacts with the bodily world—is having a second in Canada. Toronto’s Waabi, which has developed an autonomous system to information self-driving vans, simply raised the nation’s largest-ever VC fairness spherical. Montréal’s Vention secured a $110-million USD Collection D spherical final month to carry its bodily AI platform into extra manufacturing crops worldwide.

The purposes of Haply’s expertise vary from designing video video games to performing surgical procedure to flying navy drones. In accordance with Gallacher, Haply’s tech is greatest for robotics purposes in conditions which might be harmful, distant, arduous to see, or require “superhuman” talents—from lifting one thing heavy to working at a microscopic scale.

In Canada, heavy industries like mining or oil and fuel are “prime targets” to leverage haptic robotics. Gallacher added that the movement information gathered from Haply’s tech might ultimately be helpful for distant defensive or navy methods, equivalent to in Canada’s Arctic, the place tactile (and tactical) human enter remains to be required.

“You’re going to want folks to step in, supervise, and have the ability to management these methods at a distance,” Gallacher mentioned. “And that’s the place we predict we’re notably effectively positioned to excel.”

Throughout the broad market the place 3D movement information might show helpful, Gallacher sees two gross sales streams. The primary is digital purposes, like 3D modelling. The second is robotics and information assortment, together with warehouse automation, the place Haply is seeing a few of its largest contracts up to now.

Subsequent steps for Haply embody opening a brand new workplace in California, bolstering its manufacturing capabilities, and increasing its staff of roughly 50 folks to serve extra enterprise and authorities purchasers.

All pictures courtesy Haply Robotics.

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