Hoa Mai

Hoa Mai is an ex-Google and ex-Apple serial entrepreneur who has been building humanoids since 2018, according to Feather. He is CEO and co-founder of Feather Robotics, which sells a modular humanoid platform for developers.

Selling a Humanoid Startup to 1X

Mai co-founded Kind Humanoid, where he built the system architecture and AI stack. The company was acquired by 1X.

According to TechCrunch, Mai teamed up in 2025 with Parsa Bakhtiari, a former Tesla Model 3 engineer who at one point reported directly to Elon Musk. Gradient Ventures backed Feather at its inception and led its $7.6 million pre-seed round.

Designing Feather's Robots

"You can't buy a Tesla robot today and develop on top of it," Mai told TechCrunch. Feather's modular system lets developers customize the hardware, such as arm lengths, and run models from Nvidia, Skild or Physical Intelligence. The robot costs $30,000.

Feather has passed $1 million in revenue, with robots working as cooks in restaurants and cleaning science labs. "If you think about how many physical AI application companies will probably exist in five years, we expect it to be in the thousands," Mai said.