We're not there yet. Robotics is still held back by a paucity of data from physical spaces. To train their machines, companies need to build mock-up warehouses to test their machines, while an entire industry is springing up around surveilling factory lines and gig workers to train deep learning models to operate robots. Antioch, a startup building simulation tools for robot developers, wants to close what the industry calls the sim-to-real gap ' the challenge of making virtual environments realistic enough that robots trained inside them can operate reliably in the physical world. To do that, the company told TechCrunch today that it has raised an $8.5 million seed round that values it at $60 million, led by venture firm A* and Category Ventures, with additional participation from MaC Venture Capital, Abstract, Box Group, and Icehouse Ventures. Mellsop started the New York-based company with four co-founders in May of last year. Two of the other founders, Alex Langshur and Michael...
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