Feather, a Silicon Valley humanoid startup pitching itself as the Android of robotics, has closed a $7.6 million pre-seed round led by Google's Gradient Ventures to accelerate shipments of its developer-focused bimanual robot, TechCrunch reported on September 24, 2026.
An open hardware platform for physical AI
Feather sells a mobile, two-armed robot with customizable arm lengths that plugs into third-party AI models rather than locking developers into a proprietary stack. The company frames the product as an open equivalent to closed humanoids from Tesla, Figure and China's Unitree Robotics, arguing that the next wave of value in physical AI will come from an ecosystem built around hardware, not the hardware alone.
Traction, price and deployments
Co-founded by CEO Hoa Mai and former Tesla Model 3 engineer Parsa Bakhtiari, Feather already crossed $1 million in revenue before the round, with early robots operating inside Japanese restaurants and university science labs. The company is now fulfilling orders at a promotional price of $29,990, discounted from a list price of $32,990.
Gradient bets on the developer layer
Gradient Ventures general partner Darian Shirazi told TechCrunch that Feather solves a problem that has slowed the humanoid market: hobbyists, integrators and applied AI labs cannot buy and program a Tesla or Figure robot today. Feather ships them a base machine and gets out of the way. The round arrives alongside a broader surge in humanoid capital, including Helicon's $16M seed and a wave of Hello Robot's Stretch 4 unveiling at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026.
Reporting based on coverage from TechCrunch and feather.dev.