For those who don’t know, RJ Scaringe, Rivian’s founder and CEO, runs another company. If you count, this is the third company. And this time we’re focusing on robotics.
The serial entrepreneur is best known for Rivian, the up-and-coming EV maker that gained attention in 2018 after debuting an electric truck with its now-famous gear tunnel.
The publicly traded company is currently a few months away from delivering its most important EV, a mid-sized SUV called the R2. This EV costs less to manufacture than the flagship R1 (“about half” the cost, according to Scaringe), but is still technically superior in many ways. It’s also cheaper for buyers. The first version of the R2 starts at $57,990, 20% cheaper than the base R1T pickup.
And then there’s the micromobility startup, which started as a Skunkworks program within Rivian and spun out last year with the help of VC funding. Rivian, which has a minority stake, also launched a modular electric bicycle with pedal assist and a cargo four-wheeler in October last year. Scaringe is also heavily involved in the startup.
Robotics is currently on Scaringe’s mind. He aptly named his new startup Mind Robotics, but it turns out that’s not its original name. (See below for details.)
Mind Robotics wasn’t born within Rivian’s walls, but automakers may someday be customers. Mind Robotics, a private company founded by Scaringe, recently raised a $500 million Series A round co-led by venture firm Accel and Andreessen Horowitz. The company has raised $615 million since its founding in November 2025, and is currently valued at approximately $2 billion.
I sat down with Scaringe on the sidelines of South by Southwest, where his company is a major sponsor, and talked about everything he’s working on. The Q&A below has been edited for brevity and clarity and focuses on a discussion of robotics and how his new startup is taking a new approach.
tech crunch event
San Francisco, California
|
October 13-15, 2026
Has the company’s spin-off been completed yet?
Three companies? (pause) Probably.
Are you sure?
Yeah. I mean, yes. (Nods in agreement) Again. [the ebike company] That’s great because it’s here. It’s fun to watch. It’s cool and nice to see brands coexisting.
heart [Robotics] It’s something I’ve been working on for a while. It was also unique in that it was built within Rivian and then spun out of it. Mind…I started a whole new company, and Rivian is kind of a partner in it. I’m very bullish on that. This is very beneficial for Riven, but given the scale of what’s happening, I think it could be very big business.
When did you start working on Mind?
So Mind is an interesting story, and it actually goes back to R2.
About two years ago, we had a lot of faith in R2. So being confident in R2 means we think there’s a lot of volume. If you think you can get a lot, that means you think you will need a lot of plants [factories].
And very effectively, I said: “If you have to build four or five plants in the next 10 years, that means you’re going to spend billions of dollars in capital investment.” What will these plants look like? And we don’t want to build a bunch of plants and then have them quickly become obsolete. ”
I started researching the future of manufacturing and basically came up with the idea that classic industrial robots, similar to what you see today in our factories and Tesla factories and Ford factories, are going to continue to exist. But the idea of robotics with human-like skills is going to be very important.
We already had strong theories about AI in the physical world. I’ve met with just about every company working on some form of robotics that can perform human-like skills.
I broadly characterize companies as falling into the category of existing industrial robot companies. And I’ve come to the view that companies will continue to exist, but not companies that develop robots that can do human-like jobs.
And we’ve added new companies that are essentially all startups. Surprisingly, most of them are home-focused and you can spend hours on them. So many of these companies are focused on things like folding towels and washing dishes, and are some of the companies that have industrial in mind.
We have come to the view that there are ingredients for success, but no one has all of them. And I felt that I could build a better company.
I’m not going to build Rivian’s future manufacturing dependencies on companies that have never industrialized a product before, that have never taken the time to understand industrial operations, that don’t have a data flywheel to train their models, that don’t have a supply chain. Because all these companies need us to help them learn how to become real companies.
I decided to start a new company, but then I needed to understand what the governance structure would be.
And on the day we launched the company, we raised a seed round and just raised Series A funding.
Did it have a different name when it was first established or registered?
What was the project name? Let me tell you, no one has ever heard of that. (Pause) So it was “Project Synapse.”
why?
There are many reasons. This is a great question, no one has asked this. So the company’s name, Mind, is kind of linked to synapses and the brain.
Like shots and misfires.
Ha, that’s exactly right. And it was both due to brain connections. At the time, my kids were going to a school called Synapse, and I was inspired by them to think about business, so I linked them together. In fact, I almost called the company Synapse, but that’s such a funny word. I wanted something simpler, and yeah, it was pretty much Synapse.
It’s funny, one of my board members wrote me a memo and they still called it Project Synapse.
Who is on your board?
I, Jiten [Behl] Sameer at Eclipse, Sameer at Accel, and Rivian have board representation. As a private company, it is much easier than a publicly traded company.
You talked about different categories, but that’s most closely related to what Boston Dynamics is working on, which is Atlas Humanoid, but they’re planning to work with AI Lab. [Google DeepMind]?
A model is also in the works. We are building the models, robotics, and infrastructure to deploy at scale.
Then, when it comes to mechatronics and robots themselves, there is an incredible emphasis on mimicking human biomechanics, or in some cases going even further and creating even more complex mechatronics.
What do you think is missing in the industrial field? [robotics] This is one thing we can really see clearly: work is done by hand. In other words, hands are very important. From a robotic system perspective, everything else is just getting the hand to the right place. Therefore, the fact that a robot can perform highly complex movements, such as backflips, actually means that the robot has unnecessary complexity in most tasks.
And I understand that the purpose of showing it is to show the flexibility and capabilities (of humanoid robots). But if you walk into a Rivian facility, you’re unlikely to see anyone with the flexibility to do a backflip. Therefore, when considering large-scale deployments, you need to minimize complexity, minimize the number of failure modes, and reduce power consumption.
Therefore, I think that many of the robotic systems being considered for manufacturing, especially humanoid systems, are far too complex relative to their behavior. They will be human-like, have hands, and have a sentient model on top. Adds the ability to adjust X, Y, and Z. You will need to move to be able to move. However, I think that mimicking human biomechanics in a manufacturing environment misses some of the fundamental points of manufacturing. This means that everything is based on manual labor.
I’m trying to visualize what this might look like in the end, or what different variations might look like.
In other words, the hand is the most complex part of the robot.
(I’ll dive in in a moment) But it’s also where you focus your energy, money, spending, and everything you need to have.
And the other thing to keep in mind is that if you’re building a business that serves a variety of industry verticals in manufacturing, there’s no one set of perfect people.
The challenge is to amplify torque. When lifting large 4-inch diameter steel pipes, screwing M4 fasteners into aluminum castings provides a different gripping solution. It’s a very different skill and a very different level of dexterity.
One of the other things that’s happening is robotics, which is quite amazing, but we’re clearly recognizing in the biological world that evolution has allowed us to create sort of very different sets of optimal biomechanics for different things. What’s best for swimming is very different from what’s best for running. Also, what’s best for climbing is different from what’s best for lifting. Therefore, humans are not very good at swimming. For example, if you play me against the Dolphins, I will lose. If you pit me against a cheater, I’ll lose.
Of course, our brains are more powerful. So I think that in manufacturing, assuming that the human shape and form factor is the best shape and form factor for all kinds of work, you’re just missing the fact that we didn’t evolve in a factory. Now, plants are evolving all around us, and this is an important point. And then there’s the huge embedded brownfield infrastructure that the robots have to connect to. But the parts they have to connect to have to fit roughly into the space humans allow, and they have to have hands. I say this because we have different perspectives. I think many robots often start with the words we work from home, but this is very different and strange [operational design domain].
But as with all of these use cases, we’re going to do everything humans do. It’s a different ODD and therefore will be a different form factor than you say. I’m going to focus on being a maker.
and actually [in an industrial factory] There are no stairs, no joints between carpet and tile, and no need to worry about cats tripping over you. You don’t have to worry about stepping on children. Therefore, it provides more friendly constraints for large scale deployments. And you can map the environment, but the environment doesn’t change, right?
The only thing that changes this dynamic is human interaction [in a factory].
This is an important point.
That’s why the UI [user interface] is very important. I haven’t shown you what it will look like yet, but I’ll briefly explain it [sic]: You will be working with people for a long time, so you need a friendly atmosphere. But you don’t want to get sick and end up with a Kick Me sticker on your back, right?
A lot of robotics is also aiming for very lean, muscular forms that look very Terminator-like. I don’t know why. I think a science fiction movie or something sparked something like that in the world of industrial design. There are also robot versions and they are all fused together. They have the build of a very athletic sprinter. I think there are other form factors that can feel more approachable, but not stupid.
I’m starting to see a connection to what you did at Also and your way of thinking in terms of Mind’s modularity.
Part of it, yes.
The other one is Rivian. If you asked someone in 2018 what a 1,000-horsepower truck looked like and they squinted, you probably wouldn’t think of the R1. [truck]. So I think the idea is that it has all this functionality but doesn’t have to look intimidating or scary. It could be friendly. This is a design philosophy and aesthetic that can also be incorporated into robotics.
Source link
