Cartwheel Robotics

Cartwheel Robotics was founded by Scott LaValley, who spent nearly a decade at Boston Dynamics working on Atlas and five years at Disney Imagineering leading the team behind the expressive Baby Groot robot. The company built Yogi, a compact bipedal home humanoid with deliberately toddler-like proportions — a large head and rounded features — intended to feel friendly and approachable rather than industrial. A team of seven developed Yogi in under a year on roughly $3 million of outside capital. LaValley announced the company's closure in 2026, writing that it had not found the right capital partner to bridge the gap between its progress and its potential.