Pi Ventures Joins Hack VC To Back AI Robotics Startup On Base

Axis Robotics has closed a $12 million seed round to build what it describes as a compounding data engine for Physical AI. The round was led by Hack VC, with participation from Nomad Capital, Pi Network Ventures, 10K Ventures, and various angel investors.

Tackling Physical AI's Data Problem

While large language models scale on trillions of tokens of pre-existing internet data, Physical AI faces three important barriers: severe data scarcity, a generalization gap, and embodiment fragmentation across different robot hardware.

The funding will accelerate Axis's mission to build a massively parallel, human-in-the-loop global data engine, solving physical AI's biggest pain point: the scalable generation of structured, highly diverse robotic training data.

The company addresses data bottlenecks in Physical AI through its composite data engine, which integrates task generation, data collection, model training, and optimisation. The platform combines large-scale simulation, real-world data capture, and human feedback to produce training datasets that can be applied across different robot hardware.

It operates a global robot data network with over 100,000 contributors, generating more than 1,200 hours of simulated data and 20,000 hours of real-world data monthly. The company is working with Booster Robotics, Manicore Tech, Pigeon Robotics, Dexmal, Lotus, and Geely Auto to supply customised training data to robot manufacturers and Physical AI companies.

Base Recognition and Pi Network Ventures' Backing

The company said it plans to use the proceeds to enhance data-generation technology for robot AI training and expand its global data network. It plans to release Sim Dataset V2 in September and the DAgger Dataset in November.

Base congratulated the Axis team, calling it one of the leading scalable Physical AI and robotics platforms building on the network.

The involvement of Pi Network Ventures is also notable. Pi Network Ventures is a $100 million fund launched by the Pi Foundation on May 14, 2025, to invest in startups and businesses that can enhance the utility of the Pi token across various sectors, including AI, FinTech, and e-commerce. The fund is denominated in a mix of Pi tokens and U.S. dollars, drawn from the network's ecosystem reserves, and aimed at AI, fintech, gaming, e-commerce, and robotics. The Axis deal represents a further signal of how that capital is being deployed into Physical AI infrastructure.

Sources:
Cryptopolitan: Axis Robotics raises $12M to build compounding data engine
Bloomingbit: Axis Robotics raises $12 million in seed funding
Pi Network: Launching Pi Network Ventures, investing $100M in innovative startups