Robot brains go rentable: Dream-1 API at $3/hour, Eka raises $150M, Kyutai ships REKI
lmoroney · x · 2026-10-25
Laurence Moroney argues robot foundation models are becoming API-callable or downloadable:
- Dream Labs: raised a $90M seed (B Capital and Kindred Ventures co-leading) and launched a public API for its Dream-1 robot foundation model. Dream-1 treats robot skills as video prediction, learning from videos of humans performing tasks; it targets any two-armed robot with parallel grippers and needs only a video feed plus natural-language instructions, claiming to control robots and tasks it has never seen. Pricing: $3/hour for the most capable version, $0.75/hour for the lightweight one. CEO Joel Jang likens it to hopping into a rental car.
- Eka Robotics: $150M Series A led by a16z and F-Prime, building a vision-force-action model trained with RL at scale in simulation.
- Kyutai open-sourced its robot model REKI; NVIDIA expanded Isaac.
Takeaway: the model that drives a robot is now something builders can rent by the hour or run themselves.
Related event: Robot Brains for Rent: Dream-1 API Launches at $3/Hour(2 posts)→
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