AN-017 Company lists · list
Autonomous Robotics Companies
Autonomous robotics companies in the HardwareMap index, grouped by where they operate: roads, air, sea, farms, plants and warehouses. Hub, stage and raise.
by the HardwareMap editors3 min read
From the HardwareMap index, REV 26.09, refreshed 12 Oct 2026
Contents
Autonomous robotics companies in the HardwareMap index, machines that perceive and move without a person steering, are grouped here by where they operate: roads, air, sea and ground. This page lists 17 of them as of REV 26.09. It sits under top robotics companies.
Ranking rule: domain first, then disclosed capital raised. The index files these under three categories, mobility, defense and robotics; this page pulls them together by what they do.
Autonomous vehicles on roads
Waymo (Mountain View) began as Google's self-driving car project in 2009 and runs fully driverless ride-hail service in several US metro areas. It reported more than 20 million rides served on its site in October 2026 (Waymo). It is an Alphabet subsidiary, listed because it operates as its own company.
Wayve (London) sells end-to-end AI driving software to automakers and closed a $1.2 billion Series D in February 2026 with Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Stellantis participating. Waabi (Toronto) builds the Waabi Driver for autonomous trucks and is expanding into robotaxis with Uber. Einride (Stockholm) runs electric and cab-less autonomous trucks and sells freight capacity rather than vehicles; it listed on Nasdaq in June 2026.
Autonomous drones
Zipline (South San Francisco) started by flying blood and medical supplies in Rwanda. Its Platform 2 drone now delivers to homes for retailers including Walmart, lowering a small droid on a tether from a hover. Skydio (San Mateo) builds drones that navigate with onboard cameras and avoid obstacles without a skilled pilot, plus remote docks used by police departments and utilities. Exyn Technologies (Philadelphia) builds autonomy for mapping mines and tunnels where GPS does not reach. Corvus Robotics (Mountain View) flies inventory-scanning drones inside warehouses. The drone companies list covers every drone maker in the index.
Autonomous systems in defense
Capabilities and funding as publicly reported. Anduril Industries (Costa Mesa) builds autonomous aircraft, undersea vehicles, sensor towers and counter-drone systems tied together by its Lattice software, and has the largest disclosed raise of any independent company on this page. Shield AI (San Diego) develops Hivemind, autonomy software for flying aircraft without GPS or reliable communications, and the V-BAT vertical-takeoff drone. Saronic (Austin) builds autonomous surface vessels from six feet to 180 feet; the US Navy has placed a production contract for its Corsair. See defense tech startups for the wider field.
Autonomous robots on the ground
Locus Robotics (Wilmington, Massachusetts) runs autonomous mobile robots in warehouses, more than 20,000 across more than 360 sites by its own count; the warehouse robotics companies list ranks its peers. Carbon Robotics (Seattle) sells the LaserWeeder, which uses computer vision to find weeds among crops and burn them with lasers. ANYbotics (Zurich) sends ANYmal legged robots on routine inspection rounds in industrial plants.
Naio Technologies (Escalquens, France) builds the Oz and Ted weeding robots and was restructured under new ownership after a 2025 insolvency, a reminder that farm autonomy has had casualties. Burro (Philadelphia) builds robots that follow workers and carry loads in vineyards and nurseries. Cartken (Oakland) builds wheeled robots that move goods on sidewalks and inside facilities.
How to read an autonomy claim
"Autonomous" is used loosely in robotics marketing. Four questions sort real deployments from demos.
- Is anyone on board? A driverless robotaxi with no safety driver is a different claim from a vehicle with a person ready to take over.
- How often does a remote operator step in? Few companies publish intervention rates. When one does, it is the most useful number on the page.
- Where does it work? A robot that runs in one mapped warehouse or one city has proven that site, not every site.
- Who is paying? Paid service at scale, as with Waymo rides or Locus fleets, is stronger evidence than a pilot or a video.
The index records claims with their date and source and does not grade them. Status changes go into each company's datasheet at the next REV.
What autonomous robotics companies have in common
- A bounded operating area. Waymo launches city by city. Locus maps one warehouse at a time. Corvus flies inside a building. Autonomy ships first where the environment can be mapped and limited.
- Remote humans in the loop. Many fleets are supervised from an operations center, with people handling edge cases. Fully unattended operation is the exception.
- Perception hardware plus a model. Cameras, lidar and radar feed learned models. The AI robotics companies note covers the model side, and the index's lidar and perception makers supply the sensors.
Frequently asked questions
What is an autonomous robotics company?
A company whose machines perceive their surroundings and decide how to move without a person steering them in real time. That covers driverless cars and trucks, drones that fly themselves, uncrewed boats, farm robots and warehouse mobile robots. Remote supervision is common, and many systems hand off to a human in edge cases, so autonomy is a range rather than a yes or no.
Which autonomous robotics company has raised the most?
In the HardwareMap index, Waymo has the largest disclosed funding of any autonomous company, as Alphabet's self-driving subsidiary. Among independent startups, Anduril Industries in defense has the largest disclosed raise, followed by Shield AI, Saronic, Wayve and Zipline. Raised means disclosed rounds only; the index does not estimate valuations.
Are autonomous robots already working commercially?
Yes, in several domains. Waymo runs paid driverless rides in US cities, Zipline delivers by drone for retailers and health systems, Locus robots work in hundreds of warehouses, and Carbon Robotics sells laser weeders to farms. Autonomous trucking and general-purpose ground robots are earlier, with pilots and limited routes rather than broad commercial service.
What is the difference between autonomous robots and AI robots?
Autonomy is about navigation and control without a human driver. AI robotics is broader and covers any robot whose behavior comes from learned models, including arms that pick objects and humanoids that learn tasks from video. Most autonomous robots now use AI for perception, so the two lists overlap. Our AI robotics companies note covers the manipulation and model side.
HardwareMap catalogues autonomous robots on land, sea and air. Open each datasheet above for hub, stage, raise and investors.
The index
All 219 startups, filterable by category, hub, stage and funding.