Enact Intelligence Raises $30M Pre-Seed for Force-Sensing Physical AI Robots

Enact Intelligence Lands $30M Pre-Seed

Zurich-based physical AI startup Enact Intelligence has raised a $30 million pre-seed round. The round includes participation from Arthur Mensch, Yann LeCun, Thomas Wolf, redalpine, Firstminute Capital, Notion Capital, and Andrew Lonsberry. No lead investor was disclosed.

What the Company Does

Enact Intelligence is building robots that sense force and touch. Its platform measures force across the robot's whole body through sensors built into its own actuators — a proprioceptive "nervous system" paired with an AI model that converts those signals into dexterous control.

The company positions this as an alternative to vision-only robotics. Rather than relying primarily on cameras to perceive and manipulate, Enact's approach uses force and touch feedback as the core sensing modality for fine manipulation.

Target Application: Manual Final Assembly

Enact is targeting manual final-assembly work in industrial settings — tasks such as:

• Plugging in cables
• Fitting seals
• Driving screws

These are operations where contact forces, alignment, and tactile feedback matter, and where vision alone can struggle. The company's force-sensing approach is designed for exactly this kind of contact-rich manipulation.

Team and Full-Stack Approach

Enact Intelligence was founded in March 2026 by CEO Manuel Yves Galliker, who previously served as controls lead for 1X's NEO humanoid and later worked at Physical Intelligence.

The team develops the full stack — from AI models and data pipelines down to its own sensors and actuators. The platform is designed to work across robot form factors, from arms to humanoids, rather than being tied to a single hardware configuration.

Why It Matters for Acquisition Watchers

A $30 million pre-seed is an unusually large first round, and the investor list is notable for combining prominent AI researchers and operators — Arthur Mensch, Yann LeCun, Thomas Wolf, and Andrew Lonsberry — with venture firms redalpine, Firstminute Capital, and Notion Capital.

Several factors make Enact relevant to strategic and acquisition tracking:

• Sensing as a moat. By building sensors into its own actuators and owning the data pipeline, Enact controls the hardware layer that generates its training data — a vertically integrated position that is harder to replicate than a software-only approach.
• Contact-rich manipulation. Final assembly tasks like cable plugging, seal fitting, and screw driving are common across manufacturing industries, giving the technology a broad potential deployment surface if it proves reliable.
• Form-factor flexibility. A platform designed to work from arms to humanoids avoids betting the company on a single robot shape, which broadens the set of potential partners and acquirers.
• Founder pedigree. Galliker's background in humanoid controls and at a leading physical AI lab is a signal of technical depth in a capital-intensive field.

The Round

• Round type: Pre-Seed
• Amount: $30 million
• Lead investor: Not disclosed
• Investors: Arthur Mensch, Yann LeCun, Thomas Wolf, redalpine, Firstminute Capital, Notion Capital, Andrew Lonsberry

What to Watch

With pre-seed funding at this scale, Enact Intelligence has runway to develop its full stack — sensors, actuators, AI models, and data pipelines — and to demonstrate dexterous assembly performance in industrial settings. For acquirers in robotics, industrial automation, and physical AI, the company is an early-stage but well-capitalized entrant with a differentiated sensing thesis and a founder with relevant humanoid and controls experience.