Robot lamp maker Syncere raises $11M pre-seed led by a16z Speedrun

Syncere, the Palo Alto startup behind the Lume robot lamp, has raised $11m in pre-seed funding led by a16z Speedrun, Andreessen Horowitz’s programme for early-stage founders.

Draper Associates, Physical World, Sequel and SeaX Ventures also took part in the round. The company plans to use the money to deliver its first Lume units, expand manufacturing capacity and adapt its robotics technology for commercial applications.

Lume combines a sculptural floor lamp with a mobile home robot. During the day, it serves as a light. It can also move around the house to handle everyday chores, including folding laundry, tidying rooms, and making beds.

The lamp starts at $2,699, and owners can teach it how they want specific tasks done, while Syncere is developing an onboarding process that will help it learn household preferences and adapt to the layout of each home.

“Home robotics has a deployment problem disguised as a data problem,” said Aaron Tan, Syncere’s co-founder and chief executive. “Robots need real-world data to become reliable, but they can’t get into people’s homes until they’re reliable.”

Lume is designed to break that cycle. By selling the robot as a household light first, Syncere hopes to get its machines into homes earlier, gather data from real-world use, and improve their capabilities through software updates.

The company says customers should see their robots become more capable over time without having to replace the hardware.

Robotics researchers Aaron Tan and Angus Fung founded Syncere less than a year ago. Since then, the company says, Lume has moved from concept to production and into customers’ homes.

The founding team’s backgrounds include Stanford, Harvard, the University of Toronto and UC Berkeley, alongside engineering and design experience at Nuro, AMD, GM and Apple.

Interest has already built ahead of the first deliveries. TIME named Lume one of its Best Inventions of 2026, and Syncere says it has secured millions of dollars in pre-orders.

“Getting robots into real homes earlier creates a fundamentally different path to improving household autonomy,” said Andrew Chen, general partner at a16z Speedrun.

Chen said Syncere stood out because it had designed its sales channel and learning system together, while demonstrating demand before shipping its product.

The home robotics market is attracting a growing number of companies. Norway’s 1X opened orders earlier this year for NEO, a $20,000 humanoid designed to handle household chores, while other manufacturers are developing cheaper machines for specific tasks.

Syncere is taking a different route, betting that a robot designed to look like furniture will be easier to bring into people’s homes.