Summary
Tombot is a Santa Clarita, California-based robotics and digital health company that builds Jennie, a sensor-laden, animatronic robotic Labrador puppy designed to provide emotional support and therapeutic benefits to people who cannot safely or practically care for a live pet. Founded in 2017 by Tom Stevens after his mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis forced the removal of her dog, Tombot has raised more than $13 million to date and is preparing its first customer shipments for Fall 2026, backed by a waitlist of more than 23,000 pre-order customers.
Company Story
Tom Stevens launched Tombot in 2017 after a deeply personal experience: his mother, Nancy Stevens, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia in 2011, and her declining condition eventually made it unsafe for her to keep her dog, Golden Bear. Rehoming the dog worsened her loneliness and depression, and Stevens later learned that his mother’s situation was shared by hundreds of millions of people worldwide who cannot safely or practically keep a live animal due to dementia, disability, cost, or living restrictions (Tombot; citybiz).
Stevens spent several years researching the problem while completing a Master of Science in Management at Stanford Graduate School of Business, eventually deciding that a realistic robotic companion animal was the best path to reproducing the emotional benefits of pet ownership without its caregiving burdens. To make the robot appealing rather than unsettling, Tombot partnered with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop — the animatronics studio behind the Muppets — after evaluating more than 40 animatronics firms, and built the resulting robotic puppy, named Jennie, through iterative prototyping and testing with hundreds of seniors with dementia and their caregivers (Stanford GSB).
By mid-2026, Tombot had grown a waitlist of more than 23,000 pre-order and reservation customers, closed a Series A and a follow-on Series A extension, and was preparing to ship its first commercial units to paying customers in Fall 2026, with a longer-term goal of having Jennie recognized as an FDA-regulated medical device.
Founders
Tom Stevens is Tombot’s co-founder and CEO. Before starting Tombot, he spent more than 35 years in senior technology-industry roles, including as Chief Investing Officer of TES Investing and CEO of Acuity.AI, and, together with co-founders Hank Schorz and Jesse Schorz, built ACT Litigation Services into one of the world’s largest e-discovery and litigation-automation companies; ACT was acquired by DiscoverReady, a subsidiary of The Dolan Company, in a deal valued at roughly $65 million in 2011 (SEC filing; citybiz). He holds a Master of Science in Management from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from UCLA.
Hank Schorz and Jesse Schorz co-founded Tombot alongside Stevens in 2017, serving as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Operating Officer respectively, after having previously worked together with Stevens at ACT Litigation Services (Equilar ExecAtlas).
Products
Jennie is Tombot’s flagship — and, as of mid-2026, only announced — product: a rechargeable, fully cleanable robotic Labrador puppy modeled on an 8-to-10-week-old Labrador Retriever. It is equipped with sensors that respond to touch, voice commands, and movement, wags its tail, opens and closes its eyes, and makes realistic puppy sounds, with patent-pending autonomous behaviors intended to mimic a real puppy rather than repeat pre-programmed animatronic routines (Tombot; Podfeet). An optional companion smartphone app lets caregivers customize Jennie’s behaviors and track interactions, with software updates adding new actions and commands over time.
Jennie is designed specifically to help treat the Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD), including agitation and “sundowning” confusion, and Tombot has said it is also being evaluated for other populations, including children and adults with autism, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and mobility challenges — the company has said roughly 70% of its waitlist customers intend Jennie for someone other than a senior with dementia (citybiz). Tombot’s stated long-term goal is for Jennie to become the first robotic companion animal recognized as an FDA medical device under a 510(k)-exempt pathway, alongside ambitions to support remote health and safety monitoring; as of mid-2026, Jennie has not received FDA clearance and ships as a wellness and companionship product.
Funding
Tombot raised a $690,000 seed round in May 2019 to fund early prototyping (Fundz). The company subsequently raised undisclosed amounts through SAFE notes in November 2021 and March 2025, with Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health participating across multiple rounds (Caplight).
In June 2025, Tombot closed an oversubscribed $6.1 million Series A round led by Caduceus Capital Partners, with participation from StartX, Angel Physicians Fund, Tiny Orange Capital, and Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health, intended to expand its team, finalize engineering, and complete regulatory and safety certifications ahead of customer shipments (Business Wire).
In June 2026, Tombot closed a $7 million Series A extension (referred to in press coverage as a “Series A3” round), again backed by Caduceus Capital Partners and Wavemaker 360, joined by new healthcare-focused investors the Lutheran Foundation for Long Term Living and Florida Community Health Network. The round was intended to fund manufacturing scale-up and commercialization ahead of a planned Fall 2026 customer launch (The Next Web; dot.LA). Third-party trackers such as Caplight estimate Tombot’s total disclosed funding at roughly $14.9 million and its estimated valuation at approximately $20.5 million as of June 2026; figures vary slightly across sources depending on which undisclosed SAFE amounts are included.
Partnerships
Tombot’s most significant product partnership is with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, the animatronics and puppetry studio known for its film and advertising work, which collaborated on Jennie’s physical design, movement, and expressions to make the robot emotionally appealing rather than unsettling (Story — Tombot). Tombot has also engaged clinical researchers and care organizations to test Jennie with seniors in memory care and assisted living settings, and its Series A extension investors — the Lutheran Foundation for Long Term Living and Florida Community Health Network — reflect a broader strategy of partnering with healthcare and aging-services organizations rather than purely consumer-technology backers.
Timeline
- 2011: Nancy Stevens, Tom Stevens’ mother, is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia, later requiring the rehoming of her dog for safety reasons.
- 2017: Tom Stevens founds Tombot in Valencia (Santa Clarita), California.
- May 2019: Tombot closes a $690,000 seed round.
- 2020: Tombot partners with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop to design Jennie’s animatronics.
- November 2021: Tombot raises additional capital through a SAFE note.
- January 2025: Tombot debuts Jennie at CES 2025 to wide media coverage.
- March 2025: Tombot raises additional capital through a second SAFE note.
- June 2025: Tombot closes a $6.1 million Series A round led by Caduceus Capital Partners.
- January 2026: Tombot returns to CES 2026 with an enhanced Jennie and a waitlist of more than 18,000 customers.
- June 2026: Tombot closes a $7 million Series A extension, bringing its waitlist past 23,000, ahead of a planned Fall 2026 commercial launch.
Market Context
Tombot competes in a small but growing “companion robotics” niche aimed at eldercare and mental-health use cases, distinct from most of the robotics industry’s focus on industrial automation, warehouse logistics, or humanoid general-purpose robots. Caplight lists competitors including Miko Technologies (an AI companion robot for children), UBTech, and SoftBank Robotics, though these companies target different age groups and use cases than Tombot’s dementia- and health-adversity-focused positioning (Tracxn). Tombot’s approach also overlaps with earlier robotic-pet products such as Sony’s Aibo and PARO the therapeutic robot seal, but differentiates itself through its animatronic design partnership with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop and its stated ambition to achieve FDA medical device recognition, which would be a first for a robotic companion animal.
Source Notes
This profile draws on Tombot’s own website and investor-facing blog posts, a Stanford GSB alumni profile of Tom Stevens, a citybiz Q&A with Stevens, Equilar ExecAtlas executive-bio data identifying Hank Schorz and Jesse Schorz as co-founders, SEC filings related to the 2011 acquisition of ACT Litigation Services, and funding coverage from Business Wire, The Next Web, dot.LA, EIN Presswire, Caplight, and Fundz. The exact amounts of Tombot’s two SAFE note rounds (November 2021 and March 2025) were not disclosed in available sources, and total funding and valuation figures rely partly on third-party trackers (Caplight) rather than Tombot’s own disclosures. These figures should be re-verified as Tombot approaches its planned Fall 2026 commercial launch.