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Proception Settles Tesla Suit, Raises $11M for Robot Hand

June 29, 2026 at 10:04 EDT

Robotics
Funding & M&A
Policy & Regulation

Proception, a robotic-hand startup led by former Tesla Optimus technical lead Zhongjie "Jay" Li, has settled its trade-secret lawsuit with Tesla while announcing an $11 million seed round and the start of shipments for its dexterous robotic hand, ProHand.

June 29 · Proception

Settlement, $11M Seed, and First Robotic Hands Shipped

Founded in 2024 by ex-Tesla Optimus engineers, Proception resolved Tesla's trade-secret suit, closed an $11M seed round, and began shipping its 22-DoF, tendon-driven "ProHand" — aiming to be the dedicated dexterous-hand supplier others build on.

$11M

Seed round led by First Round Capital

22 DoF

Degrees of freedom, multiple joints per finger

~4 mo

From founding to a working prototype

CAD-to-URDF conversion, redrawn to scale

Using Autodesk Fusion, the model-prep step collapsed from 10 hours to under a minute.

10 hrs

before

→

<1 min

after

The data approach

A sensor glove worn by humans collects task data and doubles as the hand's "skin" — keeping the robot out of the loop.

Human wears sensor glove

→

Tactile + joint data captured

→

Scalable training for ProHand

Praise

A working prototype in four months; one investor calls it the most sophisticated hand available today.

Open questions

Shipments just began — broad user feedback, scalability, and benchmarks vs rivals remain to be proven.

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