Data-centre robot startup Watney raises $80M Series A
What's the deal? Watney RoboticsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has raised an $80 million Series A to expand its fleet of robots that handle physical work inside data centres. Valor Atreides AI Fund and Hummingbird Ventures co-led the round, with existing backers ConvictionDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Abstract, and A* returning alongside Grant Gordon.
The numbers: The round pushes Watney's total funding past $100 million. The company, founded in San Francisco in 2023 by chief executive officer Ryan Gannon and Sean Cheong, previously raised US$13.6M seed from Conviction, Abstract, and A*.
What's the endgame? Watney builds robots for data-centre operations such as cable swaps and server restarts, deploying an end-to-end model rather than mimicking human workflows. It targets tasks where robots gain an edge in precision, reliability, and scale, claiming "four nines" (99.99%) uptime across hundreds of thousands of hours on customer sites.
Why now? The AI data-centre buildout is bottlenecked less by chips than by skilled labour. Systems like Nvidia's GB300 demand intricate cabling, and Meta itself has acknowledged robots aren't yet ready for that work.
Who's using it? Per WIRED, Meta is a customer, testing Watney's two-armed robots on cable swaps at its Altoona, Iowa data centre since last June, with further trials at its Prometheus site in New Albany, Ohio. The robots are still slower than people and need supervision, but Meta internally projects that cable-swap robots could eventually replace up to 80% of some technical roles.
What could go wrong? The field is crowding fast. Meta is separately testing arms from KinovaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and ABBDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, while startups including Switzerland's Exclaim RoboticsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — which raised $4.9 million in pre-seed — and Y Combinator alumnus Shepherd RoboticsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → are chasing the same market. Exclaim founder Helen Oleynikova told WIRED there have been "many demos and pilots," but no solution has yet proven it works.
The signal: Watney's raise sits in the top 5% of all US robotics Series A rounds on record. That scale of capital signals investor conviction that automating data-centre labour — not just chips — is becoming a real constraint on AI's growth.
Read more: wowtale.net
Image credit: Watney Robotics Inc
