How Feather Wants to Become the NVIDIA of Robotics | Parsa Bakhtiari
Parsa Bakhtiari, co-founder and CPO of Feather Robotics, discusses building a modular robotics hardware platform with Oscar and Leo on The Robotics Stack podcast.
In this talk
- 0:47
Why Feather is building hardware
Parsa sees robotics as a value chain where separate companies can provide hardware, software, and deployment. He draws on the PC industry as a model and wants Feather’s hardware to let other teams build and deploy robots across different settings.
- 1:50
From Tesla to a modular platform
At Tesla, Parsa worked on battery production and automation, where he saw a robot cell help a production associate move into a quality role. He and Feather’s CEO Hua began working together after finding they shared a platform approach to humanoids. Feather’s wheeled base and modular options reflect varied customer needs, including different compute budgets, grippers, payloads, and form factors.
- 7:36
Designing for deployment and reliability
Parsa says Feather is developing a U.S.-made platform for real-world use, with reliability testing, industrial certification work, and support for repairs and spare parts. Deployments in factories and back-of-house kitchens have informed design changes, including faster vertical movement and improved wiring. The company gauges success partly by how little maintenance and support customers need.
- 14:39
Business model, safety, and growth
Feather sells hardware and provides an SDK, teleoperation, and data collection tools so customers can build their own software and models. Parsa says the robot includes safety controls, sensing, and telemetry, and that customers cannot simply run it at maximum speed. He reported about eight units sold, a $7.6 million pre-seed round, and a team of roughly 14 working from an East Palo Alto facility.
- 25:46
A broader robotics market
Parsa expects Feather to add form factors and software capabilities while expanding U.S. production. He argues that robotics will need many companies across hardware, software, and deployment, and that impressive demos matter less than reliable daily operation. He sees hardware as a major source of value and points to NVIDIA as an example of a hardware provider that also equips other companies with software.
Briefs summarise talks and interviews; timestamps open the video at that moment. Claims in a talk are the speaker's own.