What is Openmind AI? Pantera leads a $20 million investment to create Bots in the Android field.

What is Openmind AI? OpenMind is a Silicon Valley startup focused on building a software foundation for intelligent collaborative machines, aiming to unleash machine agency on a large scale. The company has completed a $20 million funding round led by Pantera Capital and launched the FABRIC protocol to enable robots to verify identities and share context and information with other robots.

What is Openmind AI? The Software Revolution in the Robotics Industry

What is Openmind AI? OpenMind exists to establish a software foundation for intelligent collaborative machines. The company team believes that robots should not just move, but should understand, adapt, and cooperate. The goal is to massively unleash machine agency, building open systems, sharing intelligence, and decentralized coordination.

The robotics industry has seen rapid hardware advancements in recent years, with prototypes capable of walking, carrying, and flying emerging one after another. However, OpenMind points out that software remains the biggest challenge. Most existing robots are largely confined to their own ecosystems, and the fragmentation and low compatibility of software layers hinder the realization of cross-platform intelligence. OpenMind has launched OM1 Beta, calling it the first AI-native open-source robotic system, attempting to establish a unified development foundation that allows various types of robots to possess perception, reasoning, and action capabilities on the same platform.

Jan Liphardt, founder of OpenMind and professor at Stanford University, pointed out that although humanoid robots and other robots have long been able to perform repetitive tasks, as they enter scenarios that require close interaction with humans, such as home environments, there needs to be a new operating system that thinks more like humans. Liphardt described that most current robots are limited by the closed ecosystems of single suppliers, lacking the ability to collaborate and respond to the complexities of the real world. “OpenMind is the layer of 'connecting organization' that has always been missing in the robotics industry.”

OM1 Beta System: Hardware-Neutral AI Native Platform

OM1 Beta is now available on GitHub, licensed under MIT, and supports various hardware and simulation environments. The system core emphasizes hardware neutrality, allowing it to operate on platforms such as quadrupeds, bipedals, humanoids, and wheeled vehicles, and provides rapid deployment via Docker images, compatible with both AMD64 and ARM64 architectures. This hardware-neutral design is crucial in the analysis of what Openmind AI is, as it addresses the biggest pain point in the robotics industry: fragmentation.

OM1 Beta Five Core Functions:

• Language Model Integration: Provides integration with models such as OpenAI, DeepSeek, and xAI, enabling the robot to possess natural language understanding and contextual reasoning.
• Voice Capability: Supports Google ASR and Nvidia Riva for speech-to-text, as well as Riva and ElevenLabs for text-to-speech.
• Visual and Emotion Analysis: Image processing and emotion recognition enhance the naturalness of human-computer interaction.
• Autonomous Navigation: Combining SLAM, LiDAR sensors, and Nav2 path planning, allowing robots to move autonomously in complex spaces.
• Simulation Environment Testing: Test behaviors through the Gazebo simulation environment, then deploy to actual hardware to reduce experimental costs.

The system is pre-configured with several common platforms, including Unitree G1, Go2, TurtleBot, and Ubtech small humanoid robots, allowing developers to get started quickly. OM1 provides a front-end interface called OM1 Avatar, built using React, which can instantly display the robot's status and virtual avatar for easy observation and interaction.

FABRIC Protocol: The Social Network of Robots

OpenMind has launched a new protocol called FABRIC, which allows robots to verify identities and share context and information with other robots. This plays a key role in the vision of Openmind AI, as it enables decentralized collaboration among robots.

Liphardt said that, unlike humans, machines can learn almost instantly, which means providing them with a better way to connect with other robots will enable them to train and absorb new information more easily. Liphardt gave the example of language, and how robots can connect with each other and share data on how to speak different languages, which will help them interact better with more people without needing humans to directly teach each language.

“Humans naturally assume they can interact with any other human on Earth,” Liphardt said. “Humans have built many infrastructures around us that allow us to trust others, call them, text them, interact, coordinate, and work together. Of course, machines are no exception.”

The FABRIC protocol is essentially a decentralized identity and communication system designed for robots. When two robots meet, they can verify each other's identities through FABRIC, share their respective capability information, and coordinate task assignments. This collaborative ability will enable robots to evolve from isolated individuals into a network of collaborative workers.

20 Million Dollar Financing and September Robot Dog Project

OpenMind was established in 2024, and will launch its first batch of 10 robotic dogs powered by the OM1 operating system before September this year. The company recently completed a $20 million funding round led by Pantera Capital, with support from Ribbit, HSG, DCG, Pebblebed, Topology, Primitive Ventures, Lightspeed Faction, Anagram, and several angel investors.

Nihal Maunder, a partner at Pantera Capital, stated, “What OpenMind is doing for the robotics field is akin to what Linux and Ethereum have done for the software world.” This analogy is highly persuasive. Linux, as an open-source operating system, has propelled the development of the entire internet infrastructure. Ethereum, as an open blockchain platform, has created a thriving ecosystem for decentralized applications. If OpenMind can replicate this success in the robotics field, its impact will be revolutionary.

OpenMind pointed out that the funds will be used to promote the deployment of OM1 and FABRIC in various fields such as smart manufacturing, humanoid robots, and autonomous transportation. Now, the company is focusing on bringing its technology into people's homes and starting to iterate on the product. “For us, the most important thing is to get the robots out there and receive feedback,” Liphardt said.