Physical-AI startup TacnIQ.ai has raised $1.5 million from lead investor In Group Holdings as part of a $3 million pre-seed round.

In a statement on Tuesday, the company, based in both Singapore and California, said the money will fund development of its tactile-AI foundation models. Besides, the firm will expand its engineering team and commercial deployments. TacnIQ.ai does not provide any other financial details.

TacnIQ.ai builds technology to let machines and robots interpret touch, reading signals generated through physical contact so they respond to real-world interactions. It focuses on logistics, construction, e-commerce, hospitality, and healthcare, gathering sensor data through wearable collection nodes. The deployments can improve workplace safety and ergonomics.

TacnIQ.ai said it has built one of the world’s largest tactile datasets, with more than 5,000 hours of interactions drawn from controlled experiments and commercial use, and is developing further sensor nodes to capture a wider range of physical signals.

The company said its proprietary dataset lets it train a single model across industries, tasks and operating conditions, rather than on laboratory data or for one application. This can reduce the need for application-specific training.

TacnIQ.ai co-founder and chief executive Aashish Mehta said the funding would let the company hire engineers and develop the technology toward practical use.

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