<p><strong>PALO ALTO</strong> &#8212; SYNCERE, a home robotics startup, has scored $11 million in pre-seed funding led by a16z Speedrun, with participation from Draper Associates, Physical World, Sequel, SeaX Ventures and other investors. Founded by roboticists Dr. Aaron Tan and Dr. Angus Fung, SYNCERE will use the funding to accelerate ongoing LUME deliveries, scale manufacturing capacity, and expand its physical AI capabilities into new commercial applications.</p>
<p>Founded less than a year ago by roboticists Dr. Aaron Tan and Dr. Angus Fung, SYNCERE has already brought LUME from concept to production and into customers&#8217; homes. Named one of <a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&;url=https%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2Fcollection%2Fbest-inventions%2F2026%2Fsyncere-lume%2F&;esheet=54633729&;newsitemid=20261103881782&;lan=en-US&;anchor=TIME%27s+Best+Inventions+of+2026&;index=1&;md5=aff5f056e28914adab4ce12c8a07b43b" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" shape="rect">TIME&#8217;s Best Inventions of 2026</a>, LUME has generated millions of dollars in pre-order demand, demonstrating strong consumer interest in a new category of home robotics.</p>
<p>“Home robotics has a deployment problem disguised as a data problem,” said Dr. Aaron Tan, co-founder and CEO of SYNCERE. “Robots need real-world data to become reliable, but they can&#8217;t get into people&#8217;s homes until they&#8217;re reliable. We built LUME to break that cycle. By creating a robot that people already want in their homes as a beautiful, functional lamp, we can deploy earlier, learn from real households, and improve autonomy over time. Every LUME we ship makes our technology smarter, and every software update makes the same robot more useful.”</p>
<p>Unlike conventional home robots, LUME serves two purposes: a beautiful floor lamp and a robot that performs household chores. Customers can enjoy LUME as a lamp from day one, demonstrate how they prefer tasks to be done, and watch it become more capable over time. SYNCERE is developing technology that will allow customers to personalize LUME through a simple onboarding process, enabling it to learn their preferences and adapt to their homes. This approach makes it possible to bring robotics into everyday life earlier, while continuously expanding what the same product can do through software updates.</p>
<p>“What stood out to us about SYNCERE is that the company has designed distribution and learning together,” said Andrew Chen, General Partner at a16z Speedrun. “They have moved remarkably quickly, built a product with the potential to reach a broad consumer and commercial market, and demonstrated meaningful demand before first shipments. Getting robots into real homes earlier creates a fundamentally different path to improving household autonomy.”</p>
<p>SYNCERE’s team brings research backgrounds at Stanford, Harvard, the University of Toronto and UC Berkeley, and engineering and design experience at Nuro, AMD, GM and Apple, combining expertise in AI and robotics research, manufacturing and industrial design to build and scale robotic products.</p>
<p>Starting at $2,699, LUME lights the room, moves through the home and handles chores including folding laundry, tidying and making the bed. Every LUME gains new capabilities through software updates, so the robot a customer brings home this year will do more next year without new hardware.</p>

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