Origami Robotics YC Application

Winter 2026Active

Origami Robotics went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2026 batch as a Industrials company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.

YC batch: Winter 2026
Industry: Industrials
Team size: 5
Status: Active
Launched: 2026

Founders

Quanting(Daniel) xieFounder
Ryan XieFounder

What Origami Robotics does

We are building a "manipulate anything" model with the robot hardware that embodies it. We designed a hand-based data-collection device and a high DOF, direct drive robotic hand that match each other exactly, enabling us to eliminate embodiment gap and collect real-world data and deploy it directly. We want to scale real world manipulation data by deploying our devices "in the wild" like manufacturing factories, logistic centers to collect Tesla like data, use these data to train our model and then provide automation solutions to these industries.

Origami Robotics's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Origami Robotics, Winter 2026 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Origami Robotics

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Manipulate Anything Robot

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

We build a robot hand and a matching hand-based data-collection device. The robot hand is high degree-of-freedom and direct drive, meaning it moves precisely like a human hand. Our data-collection device lets us gather real-world manipulation data on objects in factories and logistic centers, then use that data to train a model that can control the robot hand directly. This eliminates the usual 'embodiment gap' in robotics and allows us to deploy robot hands that can handle a wide range of tasks.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

We live in San Francisco, CA and plan to stay based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where we have access to both robotics talent and early industrial customers. We want to be close to factories and logistics centers in the Bay Area to pilot our devices and refine our data collection.

21 more answers in the full application

Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.

See full application

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the real Origami Robotics YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from Origami Robotics's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like Origami Robotics would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.