Founded in New York, Mbodi is poised to make its splash at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. The event will be held from Friday, October 27—Sunday, October 29 in San Francisco! Xavier Chi and Sebastian Peralta started the company in 2024. It wants to democratize warehouse work and transform logistics with its sophisticated AI-powered robotics and software system that handles automated pick-and-pack. Mbodi is one of the Top 20 Startup Battlefield finalists. The company’s mission is to prove that their revolutionary technology can be seamlessly integrated into today’s existing robotic tech stacks.
The creation of Mbodi was born when Chi and Peralta were engineers at Google. They wanted to make a positive difference and recognized the need for a solution. It had to successfully navigate the nuances of the real world, where the options are almost infinite. Their holistic cloud-to-edge system leverages a hybrid computing model to maximize cloud and local processing capabilities. Mbodi’s software is aimed at allowing users to ask questions in natural language and get immediate answers. This process decomposes requests into smaller subtasks, significantly increasing productivity.
Chi stressed the hard-won lessons learned in combatting the wrath of an unknown force nature transformed into a villain. “The tricky thing with the physical world, it’s infinite possibility,” he stated. For companies in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry, adaptability isn’t just a necessity – it’s survival. Rapid daily variations in product type and configuration are formidable challenges for automation.
“Every time you can invent something completely new, you haven’t had any data, that is a problem in the physical world,” Chi explained. He stressed the need for systems that can orchestrate multiple models and enable real-time updates by end-users. Due in part to that, it’s not possible to deploy robots there. Changing these robots’ programming isn’t an option either. As many humans will tell you, they’re still working on that task.
Chi’s commitment to practical application and real-world testing is what made Mbodi’s approach very different from traditional research labs. “We want to build something that works, that can actually be deployed,” he said. The emphasis is still on developing trustworthy systems that can be deployed in practice on the world’s stage.
The startup is preparing for a large commercial rollout of its technology by 2026. Mbodi leverages its proprietary software to make things easier on the people tackling everyday challenges in the CPG space. It drastically improves operational efficiency and quickly pivots to meet fluctuating passenger demand.