AI startup Inner Sky Labs, the maker of children’s companion robots under the Miko brand, has launched a suite of foundation models designed to help machines perceive their surroundings, plan and execute physical actions, and check those actions against safety rules.
Alongside the launch, the startup is closing a ₹300 Cr (about $30.9 Mn) funding round involving existing backers YourNest Venture Capital and Keshav R Murugesh, as well as new global investors, cofounder and CEO Sneh Vaswani told Inc42.
Once completed, the round would take the business’s total funding to $100 Mn.
The startup plans to use the fresh capital for real-world data collection, computing infrastructure, and model training as it expands sales to enterprises, governments, and other machine makers.
The expansion builds on technology developed for Miko, which has been the business’ public-facing consumer brand since its early years. Founded in 2015 by IIT Bombay alumni Vaswani, Prashant Iyengar, and Chintan Raikar, the startup focused on children’s companion robots while developing the underlying AI models.
Vaswani said the broader physical AI initiative had been developed in stealth over the past decade. Inner Sky Labs is the newly unveiled umbrella brand for that business, operating under the same legal entity that owns Miko.
“We built these AI models ourselves, with a strong focus on safety and sovereignty. Now, we are scaling these models beyond Miko, taking them into enterprises, government applications that require sovereign AI, and other areas,” Vaswani told Inc42.
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