Kyber Raises $5 Million for Real-Time Robot and Drone Control as Physical AI Expands
Updated
Updated · TechCrunch · Jun 19
Kyber Raises $5 Million for Real-Time Robot and Drone Control as Physical AI Expands
3 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · Jun 19
Summary
$5 million in new funding will help Paris-based Kyber expand software that synchronizes video, audio, sensor data and control inputs for low-latency remote operation of robots, drones and other devices.
Lightspeed led the round, betting that physical AI needs infrastructure where every millisecond matters and where operators, compute and machines often sit in different locations.
Kyber says it is already in commercial deployments across defense, telecom, robotics and AI, while prioritizing robotics, drones and remote IT access—an area founder Jean-Baptiste Kempf said is seeing especially strong demand.
The company sells an enterprise version of its open-source core software and custom deployments through forward-deployed engineers; it has 25 employees and offices in Paris, San Francisco and Singapore.
Kempf, the lead developer of VLC, argues the market could grow from today's fleets of a few thousand vehicles to millions of remotely managed machines, widening demand for scalable control and observability tools.
Can a Paris startup become the universal standard for controlling millions of robots against big tech's push into edge AI?
With lives at stake, can Kyber's ultra-fast robot control technology prove it is also ultra-safe?
Is the creator of VLC now building the essential nervous system for our coming robotic future?
Kyber Raises $5M to Build Ultra-Low Latency Infrastructure for Real-Time Physical AI and Robotics Control
Overview
Kyber, led by Jean-Baptiste Kempf—the creator of VLC media player and a key FFmpeg contributor—has secured $5 million in seed funding, with Lightspeed Venture Partners leading and OVNI Capital and Kima Ventures participating. This funding will accelerate Kyber’s development and boost its market reach as it builds a real-time infrastructure for controlling advanced physical AI systems like robots and drones. Kempf’s open-source background shapes Kyber’s strategy, offering core components for free while supporting commercial use, aiming to revolutionize machine control with ultra-low latency and foster widespread industry adoption.