As robotics hardware becomes more capable and available, the need for warehouse flexibility has also increased because of rapidly evolving supply chain and regulatory requirements. Destro AI Inc. today said it has raised $8 million in seed funding to accelerate development of its intelligence layer for warehouse automation.
“Everyone is building capable robots,” stated Manthan Pawar, founder and CEO of Destro AI. “We believe the next breakthrough won’t come from another robot. It will come from the intelligence layer that enables any robot to work together. Customers aren’t buying robots; they’re investing in throughput, reliability, and business outcomes. That’s what we’re building.”
“There are hundreds of humanoid and AMR/AGV companies right now, all chasing the same warehouse floor,” he told Automated Warehouse. “Robots have never been more capable, but most warehouses still don’t deploy robots at scale. Hardware isn’t the bottleneck anymore, shared intelligence is. That’s what this funding lets us go solve.”
Founded in 2025 by a team with with backgrounds at HAI Robotics, Dexterity, and Matic, Destro AI said it enables robots, people, and enterprise systems to operate through a shared intelligence layer. The Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company said it allows them to work together and optimize warehouse workflows, regardless of hardware.
Destro AI builds one platform to coordinate operations
“I’ve spent the past decade on every side of this industry, building robots as an engineer, deploying them as a product manager, selling them as a rep,” said Pawar. “Across dozens of enterprise deployments, the pattern kept repeating: Hardware was never the hard part. Getting robots to make the right decision at the right moment was. That’s what we built Destro around.”
Rather than developing another robot, the company has built two complementary AI systems:
- MothershipOS is the “shared mind outside the robot body,” deciding which system should perform which task, where, when, and how, to optimize complex warehouse workflows.
- VisionOS is Destro’s on-robot intelligence platform to enable complex mobile manipulation using AI models trained from human demonstrations. The company said it allows robots to better perceive, grasp, and interact with real-world environments.
“Together, the two systems enable warehouses to automate workflows that have historically resisted robotics while giving customers the flexibility to deploy and evolve automation across different hardware platforms as their operations change,” said Destro.
Hardware-agnostic approach gets commercial traction
Destro AI claimed that its approach has already gained commercial traction. The company is supporting complex warehouse operations at third-party logistics providers (3PLs).
“We’re one year old, live in production with leading global 3PLs, generating revenue, and winning head-to-head against far better-funded competitors,” noted Pawar. “We got there by picking the least glamorous, highest-ROI warehouse workflows first. Customers don’t buy robots; they buy throughput and reliability.”
Destro also said it has successfully focused on production-ready deployments instead of demonstration environments.
“Destro’s human-robot collaboration platform gives us a new level of intelligence and control across these workflows, helping our teams operate more efficiently while continuing to meet the high service expectations of our customers,” said Rick Brunelle, director of automation at Yusen Logistics (Americas), Inc.
Investors boost development, deployment
Base10 Partners and Bonfire Ventures led Destro AI’s funding, with participation from CoFound Partners. The startup said it will use the investment to grow its research and engineering teams, accelerate development of MothershipOS and VisionOS, and expand enterprise deployments.
At Destro, engineers and AI researchers work directly alongside warehouse operators on live production floors rather than developing systems exclusively in laboratory environments.
“We met Manthan when Destro had two pilots running,” recalled Adeyemi Ajao, co-founder and managing partner of San Francisco-based Base10 Partners. “A few months later, they’re live in production with some of the largest logistics operators in the country.”
“This means the robots stay on, the warehouse keeps using them, and that’s the hardest part of this industry to get right,” Ajao said. “Manthan and his team understood that most buyers aren’t actually looking for a robot; they’re buying a warehouse that runs better tomorrow than it did today.”
Jennifer Richard, principal at Santa Monica, Calif.-based Bonfire Ventures, added: “We invested in Destro because we believe the next wave of AI will be physical. The winners won’t simply be the companies building robots. They’ll be the companies that make robots useful inside real-world operations.” “
“We’ve spent enough time around warehouses and logistics networks to know that operational complexity is where good ideas go to die,” she said. “The gap between a successful demo and a successful deployment is enormous. Destro understands that gap.”