Machenta
Imperial College London spinout building a robot model that learns a new task from one demonstration
Official website: machenta.com
Startup · No humanoid status · Robot foundation model · London, England, United Kingdom · Founded 2025
- Founded 2025 · year of UK incorporation
- Customers · not disclosed; early-access sign-up only
- Valuation · not disclosed
- Headcount · about a dozen (reported)
Profile
Machenta is an AI lab spun out of Imperial College London that is building a robot foundation model it calls Instant Robot Learning. The company says the model is trained entirely in simulation and lets a robot learn a new task from a single demonstration, without further training. It has not released the model; its website takes sign-ups for early access and asks which robot arms people plan to use. CEO Edward Johns is Professor of Robot Learning at Imperial, where he leads the Robot Learning Lab, and CTO Vitalis Vosylius did his PhD in that lab. Machenta came out of stealth on Oct 27, 2026 with a $40M seed round co-led by Creandum and Union Square Ventures, which Imperial calls the largest seed raise by a UK robotics startup.
Notes Reported Its team page says it has been building Machenta for less than a year. The team is reported to be around a dozen people.
Leadership
- Edward Johns, Co-founder & CEO
- Vitalis Vosylius, Co-founder & CTO
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Flagship products
- Instant Robot Learning model AI model
Robot foundation model trained entirely in simulation that learns a new task from a single demonstration with no further training; early-access sign-up open, not yet released
Funding and valuation
Latest round
$40M
Seed · Oct 27, 2026
Led by Creandum, Union Square Ventures.
Total raised
$40M
As of Oct 27, 2026
Seed round only; Imperial calls it the largest seed raise by a UK robotics startup
Trademarks
No US filings since 2025 (last checked ).
Source: USPTO Trademark Search, matched on the company’s legal names. Rechecked on the 1st and 15th of each month. A filing shows intent to use a name in the US, not a launched product.
Recent news
- — Emerges from stealth with a $40M seed round co-led by Creandum and Union Square Ventures to build a robot model that learns a task from one demonstration Imperial College London
Sources
- Imperial AI spinout Machenta raises $40 million to make robots instant learners (Imperial College London) (Oct 27, 2026)
- Backing Machenta: the era of Instant Robot Learning (Creandum) (Oct 27, 2026)
- Physical Vibe Coding: Our Investment in Machenta (Union Square Ventures) (Oct 27, 2026)
- London robotics startup Machenta raises $40M seed investment (Tech.eu) (Oct 27, 2026)
- Machenta company website (Nov 3, 2026)
- Team (Machenta) (Nov 3, 2026)
Confidence: medium.