Shiraz AI

Robots that learn on the job

YC Summer 2026Generative AIRoboticsManufacturing

About Shiraz AI

We deploy robots that learn new tasks from a single human demonstration in the factory. We're starting in contract manufacturing, where lines change every week and both traditional automation and today's VLAs fall over. Our founding team has 20+ years of experience in robotics. Navid was part of the core team that productized Spot at Boston Dynamics and led manipulation projects there. Before that, he was at Rethink Robotics. Mojtaba led whole-body control and manipulation efforts at Amazon Robotics and was a Research Assistant Professor at Northwestern University.

Founders

  • Navid Aghasadeghi

    Founder & CEO

    Founder at Shiraz AI (YC S26). Previously Senior Staff Robotics Engineer at Boston Dynamics, where he was part of the core team that brought Spot from R&D to commercial deployment and led industrial manipulation. Previously Principal Robotics Engineer at Rethink Robotics, where he developed full-stack controls for Sawyer and led force control development. Also founded GenZArt, an AI consumer app that scaled to 1M users. PhD in ECE from UIUC.

    LinkedIn ↗X ↗

  • Mojtaba Mozaffar

    Founder

    Founder at Shiraz AI. Previously Senior Applied Scientist and tech lead at Amazon Robotics, leading high-impact work in perception, policy learning, and manipulation. Before that, Research Assistant Professor at Northwestern directing AI and robotics research. PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Robotics from Northwestern.

    LinkedIn ↗X ↗

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