TECH NEWS

A former Tesla Optimus engineer settled a trade secret lawsuit and raised $11M to build the robot hands his old employer still cannot crack

https://media.thenextweb.com/2026/06/proception-robot-hand-tesla-trade-secret-settlement-seed-round.avif

TL;DR

Ex-Tesla Optimus lead Jay Li settled a trade secret lawsuit with Tesla and raised $11M to ship dexterous robot hands from his startup Proception.

Proception, a robotics startup founded by former Tesla Optimus engineer Jay Li, has settled a year-long trade secret lawsuit with Tesla and raised an $11 million seed round led by First Round Capital to build dexterous robotic hands. The company told TechCrunch it is now shipping the first batch of its high-dexterity hand to researchers and robotics companies while opening to wider orders. Y Combinator and early-stage fund BoxGroup also participated in the round.

Tesla sued Li and Proception in federal court in Northern California in June 2025, accusing Li of downloading confidential files related to robotic hand actuation onto personal devices before resigning and founding the startup six days later. The lawsuit alleged that Proception’s hands bore “striking similarities” to Tesla’s internal...

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