OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is backing a stealth physical AI startup run by former Tesla and Meta employees, according to internal documents reviewed by Business Insider.
The startup, called Alfred, is also being funded by Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, Chapter One, and others. The startup is aiming to raise at a $40 million valuation, co-founder Ankit Ukil told Business Insider.
Aflred is run by Ukil, a former Tesla designer, and Dömötör Gulyas, a former engineer at Meta Reality Labs.
Alfred is emerging as investors pour money into physical AI, a category built around bringing AI to machines that move through the real world — like robots. In April alone, physical AI startups raised around $5.3 billion in VC funding, according to Crunchbase data.
Altman invested through his venture capital firm, Hydrazine Capital. Ukil said he and Altman initially bonded over their love of cars. “He’s a big car guy,” he said. “I met Sam a while ago, and he largely believed in me before the company existed.”
Altman was filmed driving an ultra-rare $5 million Koenigsegg Rivera in Napa in 2024, Business Insider previously reported.
Altman and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment.
The rest of Alfred’s team includes designers and engineers from Tesla, Ford, and Honda, according to the documents. The startup was founded 9 months ago, according to Ukil’s LinkedIn profile, and is based in Hawthorne, California, opposite the SpaceX factory where the Falcon rockets are made.
The founders are pitching investors on a software platform that helps engineers build machines faster.
The ultimate goal of Alfred is for their product to turbocharge the manufacturing process by shrinking research and development timelines. That way, engineers can skip gruntwork and focus on doing things like adding cool new features to cars, such as those often seen in the latest Chinese electric vehicles, Ankit said.
Ukit told Business Insider that Alfred’s flagship platform is under development, and that the startup is in “active conversations” with unspecified automakers, defense, and robotics companies.
Over the past 15 years, Altman has made more than 170 investments, according to PitchBook data. These include venture fund Hydrazine Capital, through which he invested in Alfred. Altman has no equity in OpenAI, but his venture investments, including stakes in Stripe, Reddit, and Helion Energy, have helped make him a billionaire.
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