Robot hand company settles Tesla trade secret suit and announces $11M raise

What happened

On June 29, Proception revealed both the dismissed Tesla lawsuit and a fresh $11 million seed round to build dexterous robot hands.

Context and impact

The settlement removes a key legal overhang for one of the most-watched humanoid robotics startups and signals that even Tesla, which had been aggressive in protecting Optimus IP, is willing to let former employees compete. With Figure, Apptronik, 1X and Tesla all racing to ship robots, supplier startups focused on dexterous hands and training-data gloves are emerging as a strategic chokepoint.

Details

• Tesla dropped the lawsuit in early June 2026 as part of the settlement
• Tesla originally sued founder Jay Li in June 2025 for trade secret misappropriation
• Seed round led by First Round Capital with Y Combinator and BoxGroup
• Proception is developing a 22-degree-of-freedom robotic hand and sensor-equipped training gloves
• The company targets training-data collection for humanoid robots