Viabot raises $24M Series A to scale autonomous trash-collecting robots

Outdoor robots-as-a-service is having a moment: Viabot's trash-sweeping fleet now covers 25 million square feet of commercial property.

Viabot, the Santa Clara startup building autonomous robots for outdoor commercial property care, has raised $24 million in Series A funding led by Walden International, the company announced on September 17. CDIB Capital Group and Stalwart Ventures joined the round, alongside existing investors Baseline Ventures, Era Ventures, Morado Ventures and SOSV. The raise brings Viabot's total funding to $43 million.

The company's flagship Viabot One is a three-wheeled autonomous platform that sweeps trash and debris up to 10 inches across parking lots, campuses and retail properties, while doubling as soft security — detecting loitering and monitoring assets. The robot navigates with cameras, lidar, depth sensors and DGPS, then returns to its dock to recharge and self-empty into standard trash bins, running on a plain 120V outlet. Viabot says the fleet now services 25 million square feet of commercial property, with its AI trained on more than 5 billion square feet of real-world multimodal data.

The new capital goes toward growing the sales and engineering teams, accelerating product development and improving its robotics-as-a-service offering — Viabot handles mapping, maintenance and monitoring while customers just empty the bins. The company claims unit-economic profitability, with contract renewals across Fortune 500 retailers, universities and utilities in eight states.

The pitch lands in a large market: US businesses spend an estimated $9.1 billion a year on litter cleanup, and Viabot cites International Federation of Robotics data showing robotics-as-a-service demand up 42% in 2024. Founded by CEO Gregg Ratanaphanyarat and CTO Dawei Ding, Viabot publicly launched in 2021 with $6.1 million in seed funding following its RUNO prototype.