Eka Robotics Secures Series A Funding Led by Andreessen Horowitz

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Andreessen Horowitz is leading the Series A in Eka Robotics, a physical AI startup developing a Vision-Force-Action model for robotic manipulation, the venture firm said in an announcement on October 20, 2026. The post, authored by partner Yoko Li and managing partner Raghu Raghuram, lays out Eka’s approach to dexterous manipulation and the firm’s rationale for backing the company.

Li and Raghuram wrote that much of the world’s physical economy, from manufacturing and electronics assembly to logistics and food production, still depends on people using their hands, even as industrial robots have transformed highly structured production where fixtures hold every part in place. Large categories of physical work remain hard to automate because the real world is variable: parts move, materials deform, objects slip, and connectors do not align perfectly.

The investors said they believe solving dexterous manipulation is one of the largest opportunities in robotics, and noted that labor is already a constraint across many of these industries.

On its website, Eka says it is building “intelligence for the physical world in its native language: force.” The company says robotics has until now required choosing between generality and performance, and describes its Vision-Force-Action model as a foundation that unites generality, performance, and safety. Eka presents three pillars for the technology: a single model that generalizes across objects, tasks, and environments; fast, reliable robots that adapt to the unexpected; and safe, collaborative, environment-agnostic operation alongside humans.

According to the a16z post, Eka has built a Vision-Force-Action model that combines visual perception with force feedback from its robotic hands, and it designs the model, sensing, controller, and hardware together so the robot can use physical contact itself as information.