Failed Fintech Founder Raises $11M for New Robotics Startup

Tens of millions of customer dollars remain unaccounted for at his previous startup, fintech Synapse. But that’s not deterring Sankaet Pathak from forging full steam ahead with his new robotics venture.

Foundation: A New Robotics Venture

Foundation is a robotics startup with a mission “to create advanced humanoid robots that can operate in complex environments” to address the labor shortage.

Pathak’s Response to Missing Funds

When asked about the missing customer funds, Pathak — who founded Synapse in 2014 and served as its CEO until May — referred to an August 20 post in which he blamed Synapse’s former partner, Evolve Bank, for the deficit. He stated, “I’m making all known Evolve deposit shortfalls and their causes public. Any customer, regulator, government agency, or member of the press can contact me directly for more Robotics details.”

Ongoing Disputes with Evolve Bank

TechCrunch has reached out to Evolve for comment. When Pathak or Synapse have previously blamed Evolve, most recently in May, Evolve has denied responsibility, pointing the finger Robotics back at Synapse.

Pathak’s Vision for Foundation Robotics 

Meanwhile, in a video posted on social media on Thursday, Pathak shared more details about his new startup, Foundation. He stated that Foundation’s goal is to “automate GDP through AI and robotics to free people from labor jobs, allowing them to pursue their passions.”

Bold Claims and Future Goals Robotics 

Pathak claims that Foundation’s model now “fully handles scene depth, object detection, semantic segmentation, and unseen object pose estimation — exceeding what any autonomous vehicle perception stack can do.” He also revealed a near-term goal to have a walking humanoid robot by the end of the year.

Challenges Ahead Robotics 

In general, there are mixed views on the near-term likelihood of a general-purpose humanoid robot. As TechCrunch editor Brian Heater noted in June, myriad engineering problems must be solved first, a point Pathak acknowledges.