Sankaet Pathak, founder of the collapsed financial technology company Synapse, has secured $11 million in funding for his latest startup venture in the robotics industry. Pathak told reporters this week that he has raised the seed round capital from investment firm Tribe Capital and other undisclosed angel investors for his new Boston-based company called Foundation.
Foundation aims to develop advanced humanoid robots capable of working in complex environments according to Pathak, in an effort to address labor shortages through automation. The startup founder revealed that Tribe Capital's co-founder and managing director, Arjun Sethi, is also a co-founder at Foundation.
Pathak's previous company Synapse offered banking services that other financial technology providers could integrate into their products. However, Synapse struggled in recent years with layoffs, bankruptcy filing and most concerning of all, tens of millions of dollars in customer deposits that remain unaccounted for today from fintech partners.
When questioned about the missing customer funds from Synapse, Pathak stated the situation needs to be addressed by the company's former banking partner Evolve Bank. He claims publicly available details show deposit shortfalls were caused by Evolve, though the bank has denied responsibility.
With Foundation, Pathak outlined lofty goals to significantly automate global economic output through advances in AI and robotics technology. The startup founder projected having a walking humanoid robot developed by the end of this year, and boldly stated Foundation's machine learning models already surpass capabilities of autonomous vehicle systems.
Experts note the numerous engineering hurdles to build general-purpose humanoid robots, but Pathak is forging ahead with his new venture and $11 million in seed funding despite unresolved issues surrounding the collapse of his previous FinTech Synapse. It remains to be seen if Foundation can achieve the founder's ambitious vision and help automate global production to a major degree through next-generation robots.
