YC Summer 2026 (S26) company

Instance

Automated evals for robot policies

About Instance

We’re automating robot evaluation– the loop where you wait for your robot to roll out, judge its success, and then reset the scene. We're starting with step one: a success detector that automatically tells you whether your robot actually completed its task along with detailed subtask breakdown. We're MIT computer scientists & friends since middle school, with backgrounds at NASA JPL, SpaceX, and AWS. Book a demo with founders@instancelabs.ai.

Public traction evidence

Each signal links to the public source used for attribution.

  1. X

    Introducing Instance: Evaluation for Robot Policies

    Ankit Gupta's native X article launches Instance, names the robot-policy evaluation product, demo.instancelabs.ai, and founders Claire Mao and Lucy Cai.

  2. X

    Ankit Gupta quote-post on Instance founders

    Ankit Gupta praises @clairemao78 and @lucyjcai; the quoted founder launch post names Instance and links the YC launch page.

  3. X

    Ankit Gupta quote-post on Lucy Cai Instance launch

    Ankit Gupta says he is impressed by the founders; the quoted Lucy Cai launch post names Instance and her profile identifies @tryinstance (YC S26).

  4. X

    went to our first robotics conference together @autonomousevent last week!! so great to hear from speakers + meet everyone

    went to our first robotics conference together @autonomousevent last week!! so great to hear from speakers + meet everyone

  5. LinkedIn

    Ankit Gupta introducing Instance

    Ankit Gupta highlighted Instance with a native LinkedIn post. Ankit Gupta introducing Instance

  6. X

    testing our live captioning 😄👋

    testing our live captioning 😄👋

  7. YouTube

    Instance - Automated evals for robot policies

    Email founders@instancelabs.ai to book a demo.

  8. LinkedIn

    Ankit Gupta post about Instance robot policy evaluation

    Ankit Gupta highlighted Instance with a native LinkedIn post. Ankit Gupta post about Instance robot policy evaluation