Kakao Ventures Makes Seed Investment in U.S. Robotics Simulation Startup Parallax Worlds

by Kim Daehyun

Published 05 Feb.2026 08:46(KST)

Kakao Ventures announced on February 5 that it has completed a seed investment in the U.S.-based robotics simulation startup Parallax Worlds.

This round was led by Pear VC, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has discovered unicorn startups such as DoorDash, Cognition, and Vanta, with participation from local deep-tech-focused investors and major Korean conglomerates.

Parallax Worlds founders Renavikar Aumkar, Agarwal Tanmay

Parallax Worlds is developing a simulation platform that enables robots to be trained and tested in highly realistic virtual environments before they are deployed to industrial sites. Without complex specialized equipment, it precisely recreates spaces such as manufacturing plants and logistics warehouses based on real-world physical laws. Through these high-precision virtual environments, where physical laws are faithfully applied, robots can safely undergo and learn from tens of thousands of trial-and-error cycles in advance.

Traditionally, industrial sites have had to accept significant costs and safety risks for robot adoption, such as halting operations to measure and map the site or suffering shutdowns because they could not respond to unexpected situations. Parallax Worlds is lowering the barriers to robot adoption by addressing gaps such as data discrepancies that arise when applying virtual environments to the physical world.

Its solutions are currently being used in industries where precise robot control is essential, such as manufacturing, construction, and welding. The platform is recognized for its versatility, being compatible with existing industrial simulation ecosystems such as Nvidia Omniverse, Unreal, and Unity, and for its high usability that allows on-site workers to use it easily. With this funding, the company plans to accelerate its expansion into Asian markets, including Korea, and focus on acquiring enterprise customers.

Parallax Worlds is built around a team from the lab of Stanford University Professor Fei-Fei Li, a world-renowned scholar in AI computer vision. Co-founders Tanmay Agarwal and Aumkar Renavikar are regarded as experts in the field of physical AI, having led research on robotics, 3D, and AI interfaces at global big tech and manufacturing companies such as Nvidia, BMW, and Michelin.

Shin Jungho, Principal at Kakao Ventures, said, "Parallax Worlds has a structurally attractive business model in which its value grows exponentially as robot hardware and AI models become more advanced, and it is a team with global top-tier technological capabilities and networks in computer vision and robotics. We expect it to become a core infrastructure that brings forward the 'robot native' era in Asia, the hub of global manufacturing and robotics industries."

Tanmay Agarwal, CEO of Parallax Worlds, said, "Korea is the optimal market to maximize industrial value, as it has the strongest manufacturing capabilities in the world. By redefining how industries place their trust in robots, we will completely remove the barriers to robot adoption on the factory floor."