Ex-NVIDIA researcher Sanja Fidler co-founds Physical AI startup Veeda
On August 19, renowned AI researcher and NVIDIA Senior Scientist Sanja Fidler announced the founding of robotics company Veeda (@VeedaAI / VeedaAI) together with longtime collaborators Zan Gojcic and Huan Ling; the company officially debuted the following day. Targeting the Physical AI space, Veeda aims to build a multimodal foundation world model that "simulates physical reality" for embodied intelligence — worth watching whether it can become a new technical paradigm in robotics.
Confirmed
- The founding team consists of three people: Sanja Fidler, Zan Gojcic (ZGojcic), and Huan Ling, all longtime collaborators, with the first two coming from NVIDIA
- Company direction: building a multimodal foundation world model that simulates physical reality, turning generative world models into training grounds for physical intelligence
- Core thesis: the team believes the scaling moment for Physical AI will come from robots interacting with the real world; embodied intelligence will not be achieved through imitation learning alone
- Product form: virtual interactive "playgrounds" where physical agents can perceive, reason, act, and learn at scale
- Vision: transforming how logistics, manufacturing, and the physical world at large operate — the team firmly believes robots will reshape the world
Why it matters
- Fidler is one of several senior researchers from the NVIDIA ecosystem moving into robotics startups, a sign that Physical AI is becoming the next hot direction after large models
- Unlike the mainstream "imitation learning + real-robot data" approach, Veeda is betting on generative world models as the training environment for robots; if it works, it could significantly cut real-world data costs and accelerate the scaling of embodied intelligence
2026-08-19 ~ 2026-08-20 · 5 related posts
Primary sources
- [source] Ex-NVIDIA researcher Sanja Fidler cofounds robotics startup Veeda — FidlerSanja · 2026-08-19
- NVIDIA researchers found Veeda AI: world models simulating physical reality for robot training — ArashVahdat · 2026-08-19
- Robotics startup VeedaAI announced by Sanja Fidler and co-founders — CSProfKGD · 2026-08-19
- [source] Veeda AI founded by ex-DeepMind researchers to turn generated worlds into physical intelligence training grounds — FidlerSanja · 2026-08-20
- [source] Former Nvidia Scientist Sanja Fidler Co-Foundes Robotics Startup Veeda — erwincoumans · 2026-08-20