This startup weaves a robot hand like rope

Budapest-based robotics startup Allonic raised a record $7.2M pre-seed round to industrialize its “3D tissue braiding” process, which weaves biomimetic robot parts in minutes instead of from hundreds of rigid parts.

The company’s platform “grows” robot bodies by braiding soft, load-bearing tendons and joints around a 3D-printed skeleton in a single automated process.

This assembly-free approach aims to cut production of robot fingers, grippers, and arms to just a few minutes, while enabling more natural, biomimetic motion.

More than a dozen investors from OpenAI, Hugging Face, ETH Zurich, and Northwestern University backed the round Hungary’s biggest-ever pre-seed.

Allonic envisions its platform as a customizable infrastructure for robot makers, with plans to scale from hands to full bodies across form factors.