Proception Raises $11 Million Weeks After Tesla Dismisses Trade-Secret Lawsuit

Proception announced Monday that it raised an $11 million seed round led by First Round Capital, with participation from Y Combinator and BoxGroup. The funding came weeks after Tesla dismissed a lawsuit accusing the company’s founder of taking trade secrets. Jay Li, who served as a technical lead on Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot program, started Proception after leaving the automaker.

Tesla accused him last year of absconding with trade secrets but dropped the case earlier this month. The company is shipping its first batch of a high-dexterity robotic hand to researchers and robotics firms and is now accepting wider orders. The hand features 22 degrees of freedom and multiple joints per finger.

Proception collects data through a sensor-laden glove worn by human testers and fitted to the hand itself. Li said the approach allows capture of human hand interaction data without requiring a robot in the loop and supports more scalable collection than teleoperation methods. “We’re working on this highly dexterous hardware plus highly scalable data,” Li told TechCrunch.

First Round partner Bill Trenchard, who led the investment, said the team kept focus during the litigation. “He was very upfront with us when this came out, and I think the team did an amazing job of keeping their heads down,” Trenchard said.