Manthan Pawar

"One of the biggest reasons we are winning against robotics companies is because we are not a robotics company," Manthan Pawar told TechCrunch. Pawar, founder and CEO of Destro AI, earned a master's degree in robotics at NYU Tandon and spent roughly eight years in the U.S. supply chain and robotics industry.

Before Destro, Pawar spent a decade building and deploying industrial robots at companies including Dexterity, HAI and Levata, according to CoFound Partners. He closed seven-figure deals and deployed 200+ robots. He recruited roboticist Soorya Narayanan as CTO.

Coordinating Warehouse Robots

Destro's MothershipOS is a shared brain that coordinates multi-robot warehouse workflows, regardless of hardware, according to the company's announcement. Destro raised $8 million in seed funding co-led by Base10 Partners and Bonfire Ventures, with CoFound Partners participating. The company is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Destro started with a pilot at one Yusen facility using three cart-moving robots, and is expanding it to a full deployment of 26 robots, TechCrunch wrote.

Teaching Robots from Human Demonstrations

VisionOS, Destro's second product, is an operating system for robot intelligence trained on human demonstration data. "Customers aren't buying robots; they're investing in throughput, reliability, and business outcomes," Pawar said in the announcement.