Robotics

Shepherd Robotics

Website
Founded 2026Origin source ↗Checked 2026-09-15

Overview

Shepherd Robotics builds general purpose robots for skilled physical work across AI infrastructure and advanced manufacturing. Our robots are powered by robot foundation models and use modular, flexible hardware designed to adapt to different environments and tasks. We train our systems on a combination of real world and simulation data so they can learn complex manipulation skills and generalize across workflows. We also provide integration into customers’ existing workflows, starting with data center construction and operations, electrical manufacturing and testing, and electronics manufacturing, where traditional automation struggles with variability, dexterity, and changing environments.

Company description As recorded 2026-11-08
RoboticsHardware deviceBusinessesEnterpriseServices

Founders & team

Feifei Duan

Founder/CEO

Cofounder and CEO at Shepherd Robotics. Ex-Waymo and Chef Robotics engineer. Trained large transformer models at Waymo and deployed robots into large food factories at Chef Robotics.

LinkedIn
Founder profile As recorded 2026-09-15

David Fang

Founder/CTO

David Fang is co-founder and CTO of Shepherd Robotics. Previously, he was a Research Scientist at Dyna Robotics working on large-scale robot learning, and building ML systems for autonomous driving at Cruise.

LinkedIn
Founder profile As recorded 2026-09-15

Kai Ru

Founder

Founder at Shepherd Robotics. x Cruise & Rivian self driving cars, planning, research, foundational models.

LinkedIn
Founder profile As recorded 2026-09-15
3team members reported
Source-reported As recorded 2026-09-15

Founded 2026 · Source

News & product activity

Sources & observations

Y Combinator

Profile depthverified profile
Website observationwebsite reachable
Last website check2026-11-11
Location · source statedSan Francisco, CA, USA
Pricing evidenceNo pricing page confirmed
Maturity: Not assessed · 2 of 6 areas documented

Source-based assessment · automated evidence rules

The retained text does not establish product availability or customer use.

Maturity is an evidence-based assessment, not a success rating. It may understate the current stage where evidence is limited. Coverage records documented areas, not a complete or independently audited company history.

  • Product overviewSource description Checked 2026-11-11
  • Product visualsNot documented
  • Founders & originsTeam information
  • Business model & pricingNot documented
  • Funding & ownershipNot documented
  • Dated milestonesNot documented
Stage definitions
independent websitesource corroborationreachable websitedescriptive evidenceclassified market and modelsourced peoplesourced founding year
startup.observe Directory coverage · Sources & method