Investing in AI and robotics
Before Formic, Farid ran the global investment fund at Baidu Ventures, investing in AI and its effect on the physical world, and founded Comet Labs. Earlier, he built and sold two technology companies.1
In 2026 he launched Robots for America, a national coalition focused on the adoption of robotics in the US.1
Starting Formic
Formic was founded in Chicago in September 2020. Farid has said he started it after seeing how few factories were putting new robotics technology to use, and how hard automation was to adopt.2
In October 2026 Formic raised $50 million to expand from task-specific cells into general-purpose robots. It runs hundreds of robots in more than 100 facilities across over 30 states.3
For manufacturers, that means they can grow output and keep production here in the U.S. without betting their balance sheet on it.Saman Farid, Formic announcement
