Insider Brief

• Antioch said it has raised $8.5 million in seed funding at a $60 million valuation to build a simulation platform for physical autonomy
• The round was led by Category Ventures and A*, with participation from MaC Venture Capital, BoxGroup, Icehouse Ventures, Abstract and angel investors, as the company develops tools to enable end-to-end robotics development in simulation
• Antioch said it will use the funding to expand engineering, scale its simulation infrastructure and advance its agent-based framework for building and testing autonomous systems

Antioch announced it has raised $8.5 million in seed funding, valuing the company at $60 million, to develop a simulation platform for physical autonomy.

The round was led by Category Ventures and A*, with participation from MaC Venture Capital, BoxGroup, Icehouse Ventures, Abstract and angel investors, according to the New York startup.

The company said its platform is designed to move robotics and autonomy development into simulation, allowing teams to build, test and iterate full autonomous systems within a single environment. The system uses agents with native understanding of 3D environments to support development workflows.

Antioch said the approach is intended to streamline development by enabling engineers to run and refine robotic systems in simulation, similar to how software is developed and tested.

The company said it will use the funding to expand its engineering team, build out core simulation infrastructure and advance its agent-based development framework.