Robotics rounds are large and mostly funded by venture firms and corporations, so few individual angels appear in the public record. In no particular order, the best-documented are Jeff Bezos, through Bezos Expeditions, and Elad Gil, while Dmitry Grishin's fund is a useful cautionary case. The sources are TechCrunch, Crunchbase and the investors' own sites.
A list titled "top angel investors in robotics" is easy to write and hard to defend. The rounds that make the news are measured in hundreds of millions of dollars, and the people behind early cheques are rarely named. This guide shows what the public record does support, and where it runs out.
Why are individual angels rare in robotics rounds?
Look at who is named in the biggest rounds. TechCrunch reported in February 2024 that Figure raised a $675 million Series B at a $2.6 billion post-money valuation. The investors it named were Microsoft, the OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia, the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, Parkway Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures, ARK Invest and Jeff Bezos, through Bezos Expeditions. Figure's September 2025 announcement of its Series C named more than $1 billion in committed capital at a $39 billion post-money valuation, led by Parkway, with Brookfield, Nvidia, Macquarie, Intel Capital, Salesforce, T-Mobile Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures and others. It named no individual angels.
The wider market is similar. Crunchbase reported in July 2025 that robotics startups had raised just over $6 billion so far that year. Its largest named rounds included Apptronik at $403 million, Neuralink at $650 million and Skild AI's $135 million Series B. The article covers later-stage and large rounds only.
Early rounds are quieter still. In December 2024, TechCrunch reported on a Form D filing for Familiar Machines & Magic, the home-robot startup founded by iRobot co-founder Colin Angle. It showed an attempt to raise $30 million, about $15 million raised so far from eight investors, and no names.
Who are the individuals on the record?
Jeff Bezos
Bezos Expeditions publishes a Selected Investments page listing 30 companies. It includes Figure, Physical Intelligence, Skild AI, Collaborative Robotics, Field AI, Generalist AI and RIVR. The page gives names only, with no stage or amount. Other public sources confirm some of them: the TechCrunch report above names him in Figure's Series B, and Physical Intelligence's own site lists him among its investors. Crunchbase names him alongside Lux Capital and Thrive Capital among the investors in Physical Intelligence's $400 million round. Bezos invests on a very different scale from a typical angel, but he is the clearest individual in this record.
Elad Gil
Elad Gil's site lists past investments that include Waymo, Anduril, Applied Intuition and SpaceX, all autonomy, defense or space names, among software companies such as Stripe and Notion. Lenny's Newsletter's December 2024 ranking put him third among the most active US angels over five years and described him as a founder of Mixer Labs and Color Health. His site calls his work a mix of investments, incubations and operating companies, so he is a generalist with robotics-adjacent bets, not a robotics specialist.
Dmitry Grishin
His fund's name suggests robotics, which makes it a good test of how to read lists. TechCrunch's June 2020 interview describes him as the founder of Grishin Robotics and a co-founder of Mail.ru Group. The firm had just closed a $100 million fund, wrote seed and Series A cheques of about $3 million to $6 million, and had exits in Ring, eero and Spin. It had previously focused on smart hardware and was expanding into gaming, entertainment, productivity and education.
Today the firm's own site describes an early-stage venture firm backing consumer and consumerized enterprise startups in online entertainment, gaming, food, education and team productivity. It lists littleBits, Ring, eero and Spin among its portfolio. The lesson is practical: a firm's name can lag its focus by years, so check the current investment page before you pitch.
What does the record say about timing?
Two sources raise it. Crunchbase's July 2025 piece quotes roboticist Rodney Brooks saying deployment at scale "takes so much longer than anyone ever imagines". Grishin made a similar point in 2020 when he said investors should pay attention to timing, not just big trends. My reading is that an angel in robotics should plan for a longer hold than in software and for later rounds that only large investors can fund.
How should a robotics founder find early cheques?
Use the public record to find who writes the first cheque, not the headline one. Pre-seed investors in hardware are often operators, founders of earlier hardware companies and specialists in your component or application. Search for rounds in your niche, then look at the individuals listed, since Form D filings and press releases sometimes name them. Ask each for the next two people they would speak to.
For deeper background, read angel investing in robotics and automation, angel investing in hardware startups and how to invest in deep tech startups. Market context is in robotics trends for 2026 and the state of AI in robotics. More lists are in the angel investing section.
A note on perspective: I am an angel investor with 234 investments as of October 2026. Among the companies I highlight, WHOOP and Eight Sleep are hardware products, but I list no robotics company, so I have left myself out and built this list only from public records.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:Who are the top angel investors in robotics?
No public source ranks them. Individually, the best-documented are Jeff Bezos through Bezos Expeditions and Elad Gil, who appears third on Lenny's five-year list of the most active US angels. Most large robotics rounds name firms and corporations instead.
Q:Do robotics startups raise from angels at all?
Almost certainly, but the public record rarely shows it. The Familiar Machines & Magic filing shows eight investors and $15 million raised with no names. Press releases for later rounds, such as Figure's Series C, list firms and corporations.
Q:Is hardware angel investing different from software?
It usually needs more capital and time before revenue, and the public record reflects that: the biggest robotics rounds are hundreds of millions of dollars. Rodney Brooks's remark about deployment taking longer than anyone imagines is a fair summary of the risk.
Q:How much money goes into robotics startups?
Crunchbase counted just over $6 billion raised by robotics startups in 2025 as of July. The figure includes large rounds such as Apptronik's $403 million, so it overstates what an early-stage founder will see.