Applications are now open for our Upcoming Accelerate Cohort!
Selected startups—up to six pre-seed companies—will receive up to $100,000 in funding, access to the Robotics Factory’s state-of-the-art co-working and production-grade prototyping space, and tailored mentorship from seasoned professionals in robotics and business. Participants benefit from an immersive program covering essentials like customer and market fit, scaling a hardware business, manufacturing at scale, and designing for production. Unique to this program, founders engage regularly with a dedicated team of experts committed to their success.
Past participants highlight the program’s unparalleled value. Candice Caputo, COO at Humotech, credits the Robotics Factory for refining their processes, manufacturing scalability, and investment readiness. "The program’s support has been pivotal in bringing our innovative clinical application to market," she shared.
1:1 Mentorship with seasonedstartup leaders via the Pittsburgh Robotics Network
12 months of office space at the Robotics Factory in Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh with access to an expansive prototyping workshop and robotics testing shop
Product development resources including manufacturing bootcamp, product design reviews, and manufacturing toolkit templates, one-on-one manufacturing office hours
1:1 Business coaching with the Innovation Works program team to help you achieve your specific milestones, with little/no “mandatory” programming
Reclamation Factory is building the future of a distributed circular economy for plastics.
Humotech provides a wearable robotics platform (Caplex™) that enables researchers and developers to rapidly iterate on and evaluate different approaches to assisting human mobility.
Journey Robotics builds aviation automation solutions to improve the safety and efficiency of airport & airline operations.
ForSight Assistive Devices is a company dedicated to creating products to assist the visually impaired.
HeadStrait Labs is a female-led medical device company developing a new technology to improve patient outcomes during prehospital care and ambulance transportation.
Yes, we expect each startup to have a significant presence in SWPA for the duration of the program and for five years following the program.
We define robotics as a technology that will “sense, perceive, act”. Please tell us more about your product if you are unsure if you meet that definition.
No, your company can be pre-revenue, but we expect that a company has completed customer discovery and is actively listening to the needs of potential customers.
Applications for the 2026 application cycle close July 18, 2026.
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