TMTPOST -- TetherIA.ai, a Silicon Valley-based robotics startup founded in early 2025, is making waves in the robotics industry with its development of a next-generation humanoid dexterous hand platform. Co-founded by veterans from Tesla and Waymo, the company seeks to push the boundaries of AI-integrated robotics for commercial applications.

The startup’s founders bring heavyweight experience from the tech world. Yiwei Tao, also known as Evan, led the Tesla Optimus Dexterous Hand project, overseeing everything from engineering design to mass production, and previously worked at Apple as the lead mechanical designer for Vision Pro. Co-founder Xu Dong, or Joe, formerly headed AI planning technology at XPeng and was a core member of Waymo’s foundational large model team, publishing several high-profile AI and autonomous driving papers.

TetherIA’s team currently includes 15 engineers, all based in Silicon Valley and drawn from top institutions such as Stanford, UC Berkeley, Cornell, and Carnegie Mellon. The group has prior experience at Tesla, Apple, Waymo, and XPeng, and specializes in robotics control, mechanical design, and AI.