Robotics Is Still in Its 'Lego Era,' Says an Nvidia Veteran Turned VC
Amulya Vishwanath spent seven years on NVIDIA's robotics business and now writes first checks for physical AI. She says the industry's building blocks are still being rebuilt.
Robotics keeps getting hyped as the next field waiting for its breakthrough moment — but someone who spent seven years inside NVIDIA's robotics business says the industry isn't anywhere near that point. According to Amulya Vishwanath, the field is in its "Lego era," with the basic building blocks still being assembled.
The pieces aren't in place yet
Vishwanath led product marketing for NVIDIA's robotics platforms before leaving to found Techable VC, an early-stage firm where she is managing partner. On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, she told host Dominic-Madori Davis that components like actuators, robotic hands, software stacks, and safety standards are still being rebuilt, per the interview. The metaphor is deliberate: the industry can't reach for the spectacular until it finishes reconstructing the mundane.
That view cuts against a popular Silicon Valley thesis — that a single general foundation model will do for robots what the shockingly capable chatbot launched in late 2022 did for language software. Earlier this year, General Intuition CEO Pim de Witte told Equity that one general model would make much of today's specialized robotics work redundant, which would amount to robotics' "ChatGPT moment." Vishwanath is betting the opposite: software intelligence alone doesn't resolve the physical constraints of machines that have to move, grasp, and operate safely around people.
Where a builder's money goes
As an investor, Vishwanath is writing first checks across physical AI — not just robots, but materials science and life sciences. She is also one of the first women executives to spin out of Nvidia and launch her own early-stage firm, according to TechCrunch.
For anyone tracking where the robotics money flows, the takeaway is practical rather than flashy: the next wave of value may sit with the companies rebuilding the unglamorous layers — hands, actuators, safety standards — rather than with whoever claims the biggest foundation model.
Written by the BidAsk Newsroom. Based on reporting from the sources below.
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