FundraiseOct 9, 2026, 12:01 UTC

Ultra raises $50M Series A to scale its ‘robots as a service’ warehouse business

What's the deal? Brooklyn-based Ultra has raised a $50 million Series A led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator. The startup leases packing robots to warehouses under a monthly "robots as a service" model. Combined with an earlier $12 million seed round, led by Y Combinator and Next View, Ultra has raised $62 million to date.

What's the endgame? Ultra builds and installs robots that pack goods for transit at third-party logistics sites. The company says its machines have packed more than 500,000 orders for shipping across US warehouses. Alongside the raise, it is deepening a partnership with AI research firm Physical Intelligence.

How it works: The "robots as a service" model lets clients skip large upfront capital outlays. Customers pay an integration fee for installation, then an ongoing monthly fee for hardware and software support. Chief executive officer and co-founder Jon Miller Schwartz says demand has let Ultra raise prices.

The partnership: Ultra uses a "body and brains" split: it builds the robots, while Physical Intelligence supplies the AI that lets them learn and improve. The firm, valued at $5.6 billion, was founded by a team from Google DeepMind. In return, Physical Intelligence gets real-world data to refine its models.

The signal: Schwartz argues humanoid robots grab attention but struggle to deploy, while other forms are doing the real work. Ultra joins a crowded field of warehouse automation players, including France's Exotec, Amazon, and Travis Kalanick's new logistics venture, Atoms. Its bet is that non-humanoid robots, paired with outside AI, will win the warehouse.