FORT Robotics
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FORT Robotics is a Philadelphia-based technology company that builds safety and security infrastructure for autonomous machines, robots, and industrial vehicles. Founded in 2018 by Samuel Reeves, the company develops what it calls a trust layer for physical AI: a distributed control platform of hardware, software, and ecosystem integrations that lets machines operate reliably, communicate securely, and act safely around people. FORT's products include wireless emergency stops, safe remote controls, and functional-safety controllers used across warehousing, manufacturing, construction, agriculture, mining, transportation, and defense. In June 2026, FORT became an ecosystem partner in NVIDIA Halos for Robotics, contributing infrastructure-based Outside-In Safety to the platform's full-stack safety system.[1][2][3]
FORT Robotics positions itself around a single thesis: safety is the precondition for deploying autonomous machines at scale. As robots and self-driving industrial vehicles move out of caged, isolated work cells and into shared human environments, they need a dependable way to be stopped, supervised, and constrained when something goes wrong. FORT's platform aims to supply that layer in a vendor-neutral way, so that operators of automated guided vehicles (AGVs), autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), and heavy equipment can add certifiable safety and secure control regardless of the underlying robot brand.[1][4]
The company describes its offering as a foundational trust layer for physical AI, built on three complementary capabilities: infrastructure-based Outside-In Safety, onboard active safety, and human-in-the-loop remote control. Together these are intended to keep machines safe in dynamic environments while maximizing operational throughput rather than simply forcing robots to slow down or stop.[2][3]
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2018 |
| Founder and CEO | Samuel Reeves |
| Founding CTO | Nathan Bivans |
| Headquarters | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA |
| Sector | Safety and security for autonomous machines (functional safety, secure control) |
| Flagship platform | FORT Trust Platform / trust layer for physical AI |
| Total funding | About $60.5 million (as of 2025) |
| Notable investors | Tiger Global, Prime Movers Lab, Mark Cuban, Prologis Ventures, Creative Ventures, FundersClub, Ahoy Capital |
| NVIDIA partnership | NVIDIA Halos for Robotics ecosystem partner; member of NVIDIA Halos AI Systems Inspection Lab |
FORT Robotics was founded in 2018 by Samuel Reeves, an entrepreneur whose earlier work in landmine clearance shaped the company's mission. In 2006 Reeves launched Humanistic Robotics, a defense-oriented venture that developed autonomous land-mine-clearing systems and built a safety platform to operate dangerous machines remotely. That experience surfaced what Reeves saw as a missing piece of the robotics stack: while AI and automation were advancing quickly, the infrastructure needed to ensure safe and secure real-world operation did not exist. In 2018 the businesses split, with Reeves carrying the safety-platform concept into FORT Robotics while Humanistic Robotics continued separately.[1][5]
The company is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and has grown from an early focus on rugged wireless emergency-stop hardware into a broader platform spanning safety controllers, secure communications, remote operation, and ecosystem integrations.[1][5]
FORT's portfolio combines safety hardware with software for fleet-wide management and secure control. Publicly described products include:[1][4]
A central design goal is functional safety: the discipline, governed by standards such as the IEC 61508 family and related machinery-safety norms, of building systems whose failures are detected and handled in a way that keeps people safe. FORT pairs this with cybersecurity so that the safety and control channels resist tampering, a concern that grows as connected robots proliferate.[1][4]
FORT frames its platform as a trust layer for physical AI, organized around three capabilities:[2][3]
In June 2026, FORT Robotics joined the NVIDIA Halos for Robotics ecosystem, the safety initiative NVIDIA describes as the industry's first full-stack functional-safety system for physical AI. FORT extended its trust layer by adding Outside-In Safety in collaboration with Halos, pairing the open-source NVIDIA Halos Outside-In Safety Blueprint with the FORT Trust Layer. The combined approach extends robot perception beyond onboard sensors using external infrastructure sensors and visual AI agents to deliver real-time, safety-certifiable functional safety while maximizing throughput.[2][3]
FORT is also a member of the NVIDIA Halos AI Systems Inspection Lab, described as the world's first inspection lab accredited by the ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB) and built specifically for physical AI and autonomous systems. The lab offers a unified framework for verifying functional safety, cybersecurity, and AI compliance across autonomous vehicles, robotics, and sensor technologies.[2][3]
The company said it would demonstrate an agentic safety application built on the Halos Outside-In Safety Blueprint at the Automate conference in Chicago, presenting alongside NVIDIA in the Humanoid Robotics Pavilion. FORT framed the application areas as warehousing, manufacturing, and related automated industries, where infrastructure sensing can let both robots and existing facility infrastructure deliver more value.[2][3]
Separately, FORT has partnered with Advantech on safety for physical AI powered by NVIDIA IGX Thor, the embedded computing platform NVIDIA targets at safety-critical industrial and medical edge applications.[6]
FORT Robotics has raised roughly $60.5 million in disclosed funding as of 2025. In March 2021 the company closed a $13 million Series A round led by Prime Movers Lab, with participation from Prologis Ventures, Ahoy Capital, FundersClub, Compound, Lemnos, Quiet Capital, Creative Ventures, and investor Mark Cuban. The capital was earmarked for roughly doubling the workforce and expanding the product line.[5][7]
In August 2025 FORT announced an additional $18.9 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global, bringing total funding to about $60.5 million. Returning backers included Prime Movers Lab, Mark Cuban, FundersClub, Creative Ventures, GRIDS Capital, and Ahoy Capital, joined by new investors Neman Ventures, Mana Ventures, Gaingels, and Ryuu Co. of Japan.[8][9]
On May 27, 2026, FORT Robotics announced the acquisition of Mapless AI, a Boston- and Pittsburgh-based company specializing in vehicle teleoperation and autonomy supervision. Mapless AI was founded by Philipp Robbel and Jeffrey Kane Johnson, with a team drawing on experience from Bosch, Apple, Uber, Aptiv, and nuTonomy. The deal expanded FORT's Trust Platform with two capabilities: remote human-in-the-loop teleoperation, allowing off-site specialists to monitor and operate machines without entering high-risk zones, and onboard active safety using environmental perception to detect and anticipate hazards in real time.[10]
FORT framed the acquisition around the gap between impressive robot demonstrations and scalable, safe deployment, with Reeves arguing that the industry is at a crossroads where demos are common but reliable scaling remains rare.[10]
FORT's platform is used across industries where machines operate near people or valuable infrastructure, including warehousing, manufacturing, construction, agriculture, mining, transportation, lawn care, delivery, and defense. Typical use cases span trailer unloading, inventory replenishment, product assembly, and the operation of AMRs, AGVs, and autonomous heavy equipment.[1][2][4]