When Stretch’s batteries run down, lights around its “eyes” glow — “it looks angry,” Blaine Matulevich, an engineer at the company, jokes.

Hello Robot, founded in 2017 by CEO Aaron Edsinger, a former director of robotics at Google, and CTO Charlie Kemp, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is not building a foundation model or promising to take over every job a human can do. Hello Robot developed Stretch to do something many other robots aren’t doing: Working in real homes, with real people, at a time when most are behind glass in laboratories.

This is vital. While the latest advances in artificial intelligence promise more capabilities for robots, there is a dearth of useful training data. And while simulation is improving, investors are increasingly focused on deployment.

“Companies that deploy first accumulate site-specific recovery loops and workflow tolerances that no competitor can buy or synthesize,” Bullhound Capital wrote in a report on the sector published last week. “In robotics, the moat isn’t just IP, but accumulated operating hours under real-world liability.”