Antioch raises $8.5M seed round to build simulation platform for physical AI development
So, there's this cool startup called Antioch that kicked off in May 2023, and they just raised $8.5 million in seed funding, bringing their worth to $60 million. They're based in New York and focus on developing simulation tools for robot creators who can't do physical tests, which helps bridge the gap between simulation and real-world applications. The funding news came out on April 16, 2026, thanks to TechCrunch, and it was led by A* and Category Ventures, with other investors like MaC Venture Capital, Abstract, Box Group, and Icehouse Ventures getting involved. The team behind it includes co-founders Harry Mellsop, Alex Langshur, Michael Calvey, Collin Schlager, and Colton Swingle, and their platform lets developers create virtual hardware with simulated sensors.
Key facts
- Antioch raised $8.5 million in seed funding at a $60 million valuation
- The funding round was led by A* and Category Ventures
- Antioch was founded in May 2023 in New York
- The company aims to close the sim-to-real gap for physical AI
- Co-founders include Harry Mellsop, Alex Langshur, Michael Calvey, Collin Schlager, and Colton Swingle
- Antioch's platform allows simulation of hardware with digital sensors for testing
- Adrian Macneil, former Cruise executive, is an angel investor in Antioch
- David Mayo at MIT CSAIL uses Antioch's platform for LLM evaluation experiments
Entities
Artists
- Harry Mellsop
- Alex Langshur
- Michael Calvey
- Collin Schlager
- Colton Swingle
- Çağla Kaymaz
- Adrian Macneil
- David Mayo
Institutions
- Antioch
- TechCrunch
- A*
- Category Ventures
- MaC Venture Capital
- Abstract
- Box Group
- Icehouse Ventures
- Transpose
- Chainalysis
- Meta Reality Labs
- Google DeepMind
- Waymo
- Cruise
- Foxglove
- MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
- Nvidia
- World Labs
- GitHub
- Stripe
- Twilio
Locations
- New York
- United States
- San Francisco