Paddington Robotics

Paddington Robotics was founded in 2024 in London to solve a problem that has long held back the practical deployment of AI-driven robots in the real world: the absence of high-quality, real-world training data collected from the kinds of human spaces where robots are actually needed. Simulation environments and curated datasets have driven remarkable progress in AI research, but they consistently fail to capture the complexity, variability, and unpredictability of everyday physical environments. Paddington Robotics was created to close that gap, starting with supermarkets — one of the most commercially significant and logistically complex examples of human spaces.

The company builds AI and robotics systems designed to operate reliably in environments characterised by constant human activity, dynamic product placement, and variable lighting and layout. Its platform specialises in bridging the gap between digital AI intelligence and physical-world deployment, combining hardware, software, and robotics in systems that can perceive, navigate, and act in spaces shared with people. Co-founder and CEO Dr. Zehan Wang, who previously co-founded Magic Pony Technology (acquired by Twitter in 2016), brings significant experience in scaling AI from research to commercial deployment.

Paddington Robotics raised £1.9 million in 2025 backed by 7percent Ventures and Octopus Ventures. The company is working with pilot customers and is positioned to become a foundational platform for embodied AI in the retail and logistics sectors.