About Covariant
Covariant is an Industrial Goods & Manufacturing company based in Emeryville (United States) founded in 2017 by Rocky Duan, Tianhao Zhang, Peter Chen, and Pieter Abbeel. It operates as an imitation models are developed for teaching robotic arms articulation tasks. Covariant has raised $202 million across 5 funding rounds from investors including Temasek, Northgate Capital and CPP Investments. Its chief executive is Peter Chen. Its website covariant.ai draws about 18 thousand monthly visits. Covariant offers products and services including Covariant Brain. Its focus areas include High Tech, Industrial Robotics, Tech Enablers and Software. Its legal entity is EMBODIED INTELLIGENCE INC. Its competitors include Formant, Viam, MOV.AI, Trace Machina and Dime Research and 3 more; 8 of its 8 listed competitors have raised funding.
Company details
Developer of imitation models for teaching articulation tasks to robotic arms. It uses a COTS VR HMD and hand-tracking system to allow a programmer to demonstrate a specific hand movement. The imitation learning models translate this to specific instruction rewards set for the robot, allowing it to learn the movement quickly. Embodied Intelligence claims that its imitation models are better than the more standard reinforcement learning models (since the latter requires a lot of time when applied to physical actions), and are also better than hard-coding specific movements.
- Headquarters Emeryville, United States
- Founders Rocky Duan, Tianhao Zhang, Peter Chen, Pieter Abbeel
- SectorsIndustrial Goods & Manufacturing
- Website covariant.ai
- Social LinkedIn X YouTube
- Legal Name Embodied Intelligence Inc.
- Total Equity Funding$202M (USD)
in 5 rounds
- Latest Funding Round$75M (USD), Series C
Apr 2023
- InvestorsTemasek
& 12 more
Products & Services of Covariant
Covariant offers a comprehensive portfolio of products and services, including Covariant Brain.
AI platform for training robots to automate warehouse picking tasks.
Apps and channels of Covariant
its YouTube channel Covariant has 1.7K subscribers and 30 videos.
Videos from Covariant
The most watched videos on Covariant's YouTube channel, Covariant (1.7K subscribers). Click a video to play it here.
More on Covariant.
Funding Insights of Covariant
Covariant has successfully raised a total of $202M across 5 strategic funding rounds. The most recent funding activity was a Series C round of $75 million completed in April 2023. This substantial capital infusion reflects strong investor confidence in the company's business model, growth potential, and market opportunities. The funding enables strategic expansion, product development, market penetration, and operational scaling to drive long-term value creation and competitive advantage.
- Total Funding $202M
- Total Rounds 5
- Last Round Series C — $75M
- First Round $7M
(Nov 2017)
- Investors Count 13
All 5 funding rounds of Covariant with amounts and investors; the two latest post-money valuations are shown, the rest are part of the premium plan.
| Date | Amount | Transaction Name | Valuation | Lead Investors | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2023 | $75M | Series C | – | Radical Ventures, Index Ventures | |
| Jul 2021 | $80M | Series C | – | Index Ventures | |
| May 2020 | $40M | Series B | – | Index Ventures, Radical Ventures | |
| Jun 2018 | – | Series A | – | Samsung NEXT | – |
| Nov 2017 | $7M | Seed | – | Amplify Partners |
13 investors in total: 13 institutional.
Investors in Covariant
Covariant has secured backing from 13 investors, including venture fund and institutional investors. Prominent investors backing the company include Temasek, Northgate Capital and CPP Investments.
| Investor | Description | Founded Year | Domain | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Venture capital firm focused on AI-driven companies | – | radical.vc | Toronto, Canada | |
Venture capital investments in technology startups and entrepreneurs. | – | indexventures.com | - | |
Technical founders are supported through early-stage venture capital investments. | – | amplifypartners.com | Menlo Park, United States | |
Venture capital is provided to AI-powered companies by AIX Ventures. | – | aixventures.com | Palo Alto, United States | |
Northgate Capital is engaged in venture capital and private equity investments. | 2000 | northgate.com | San Francisco, United States | |
An investment platform is provided for diverse sectors and geographies. | 1974 | temasek.com.sg | Singapore, Singapore | |
Venture capital fund investing in early-stage tech startups | – | samsungnext.com | Berlin, Germany | |
Seed and early-stage technology companies are funded by Lux Capital. | – | luxcapital.com | Menlo Park, United States | |
Early-stage investments are provided to transformative technology companies. | – | svangel.com | San Francisco, United States | |
Web application development and JavaScript-based services. | – | freeventures.org | - |
Investor details for Covariant
The complete investor list, round-by-round participation and investor portfolios require an active premium plan.
- Complete investor list
- Round participation
- Investor portfolios
- Co-investor network
Verified entity values are shown only after access is granted.
People of Covariant
14 people are tracked at Covariant (8 in leadership, 6 in team).
| Name | Role | Group |
|---|---|---|
Rocky Duan | Co-Founder & CTO | Leadership |
Tianhao Zhang | Co-Founder | Leadership |
Peter Chen | Co-Founder & CEO | Leadership |
Pieter Abbeel | Co-Founder & President | Leadership |
Sujoy Haldar, CFA | Chief Financial Officer | Leadership |
Peter Xi Chen | Co-Founder & CEO | Leadership |
Antoine Paré | Vice President Operations | Leadership |
Tim Helps | Head Of Performance, Europe | Leadership |
Minna Ocker | Business Development | Team |
Vaijayanthi . | People Operations Generalist | Team |
Montse Coronel | Sr Technical Project Manager | Team |
Carl Liu | Technical Project Manager | Team |
Justin Stebbins | Investor | Team |
Ian Rust | Advisor | Team |
Complete people profiles for Covariant
Full employee and board profiles, team structure, tenure and professional contact details require an active premium plan.
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Verified entity values are shown only after access is granted.
Timeline of Covariant
3 dated milestones of Covariant across 6 years, from founding to its latest funding, stage changes and deals.
- Founded Covariant is founded.
- Funding First funding round of $7.0M.
- Funding Latest funding round, Series C, of $75.0M.
Competitors of Covariant
Covariant has 8 listed competitors in our database, 8 of them funded. They include Formant, Viam, MOV.AI, Trace Machina and Dime Research, among others.
| Company Name | Domain | Founded | HQ Location | Total funding | Employees | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| formant.io | 2017 | San Francisco, United States | $45M | 27 | Cloud-based solutions for robot fleet control and monitoring are offered. | |
| viam.com | 2020 | New York, United States | $117M | – | A platform for integrating data, AI, and automation is developed. | |
| mov.ai | 2016 | Sintra, Portugal | $15.2M | – | AI-based robotics engine platform is developed for automation products. | |
| tracemachina.com | 2023 | Palo Alto, United States | $4.7M | – | Simulation infrastructure is provided for safety-critical physical world AI development. | |
| daimresearch.com | 2020 | Seoul, South Korea | $1.61M | – | AI-driven solutions for automated material handling in warehouses are provided. | |
| usebow.com | 2020 | Sheffield, United Kingdom | $4.99M | – | Robotics software platform | |
| xito.one | 2020 | Ulm, Germany | $1.73M | – | Robotics application services are provided by XITO in Germany. | |
| energy-robotics.com | 2018 | Darmstadt, Germany | $17.86M | 17 | Provider of cloud and AI-based robotic software solutions |
Detailed competitors of Covariant
The full competitor set, operating metrics and side-by-side benchmarks require an active premium plan.
- Full competitor set
- Operating metrics
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Web traffic of Covariant
The website of Covariant (covariant.ai) receives about 17.9K visits a month.
- Monthly visits17.9K
▼ 37.4% vs previous month
Websites whose visitors overlap most with Covariant. Affinity shows how closely the audiences match.
| Website | Domain | Audience affinity | Monthly visits | Global rank | Profile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| agilityrobotics.com | 100% | 83.3K | #408,809 | View details | |
| therobotreport.com | 96% | 277K | #181,779 | View details | |
| shadowrobot.com | 96% | 24.2K | #1,136,647 | View details |
Top companies in Industrial Automation & Robotics
10 companies that operate in the same segment as Covariant (Industrial Automation & Robotics), ranked by their profile score on The Company Check.
| Company | Description | Founded | Location | Total funding | Revenue | Employees |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Developer of LiDAR-based sensors | 2002 | San Francisco, California, United States | USD 129 M | USD 169.38 M | 192 | |
Diversified electronics and automation equipment are manufactured and supplied. | 1885 | United States | – | USD 37.44 B | 6,810 | |
Manufacturer of Industrial and Consumer Electric Equipment | 1937 | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India | – | USD 1.32 B | 4,840 | |
AI and SaaS-based robots for warehouse automation are provided. | 2012 | Roswell, United States | USD 545.23 M | USD 39.76 M | 553 | |
AI-based robotic arms are developed for industrial automation tasks. | 2010 | San Francisco, California, United States | USD 123.02 M | – | – | |
Energy management and automation solutions are provided globally. | 1836 | Rueil-malmaison, Hauts-de-seine, France | – | USD 39.63 B | 2,020 | |
AI-enabled autonomous vehicles are developed for local goods deliveries. | 2016 | Menlo Park, California, United States | USD 2.34 B | – | 1,152 | |
Robotic waterjet system for prostate tissue removal is developed. | 2009 | Redwood City, California, United States | USD 348.84 M | USD 308.05 M | 756 | |
Robotic equipment for automating weeding on vegetable farms is developed. | 2016 | San Francisco, California, United States | USD 139.96 M | – | 73 | |
Collaborative surgical robotic systems are provided for hospital procedures. | 2014 | Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom | USD 1.68 B | USD 48.75 M | 680 |
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Related news about Covariant
Complete news archive for Covariant
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Frequently Asked Questions about Covariant
Covariant was founded in 2017.
Covariant is headquartered in Emeryville, United States. It is registered at Emeryville, California, United States.
Peter Chen is the current CEO of Covariant. They have also founded this company.
Covariant is a funded company, having raised a total of $202M across 5 funding rounds to date. The company's 1st funding round was a Seed of $7M, raised on Nov 2017.
Developer of imitation models for teaching articulation tasks to robotic arms. It uses a COTS VR HMD and hand-tracking system to allow a programmer to demonstrate a specific hand movement. The imitation learning models translate this to specific instruction rewards set for the robot, allowing it to learn the movement quickly. Embodied Intelligence claims that its imitation models are better than the more standard reinforcement learning models (since the latter requires a lot of time when applied to physical actions), and are also better than hard-coding specific movements.
Covariant's top competitors include Formant, Viam and Trace Machina.
Covariant offers Covariant Brain.
Covariant has 13 investors. Key investors include Temasek, Northgate Capital, CPP Investments, Radical Ventures, and Index Ventures.
Covariant operates through Embodied Intelligence Inc..