A young Pakistani entrepreneur who dropped out of university twice is now building a robotics startup in Silicon Valley. His strength is that he is backed by some of the technology industry’s biggest investors and executives, like OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
Meet Muhammad Bilal, who began his university studies in South Korea at the age of 16 before eventually launching startups. He also went on to conduct research at ETH Zurich, and building a robotics company in San Francisco focused on simulation technology for robots.
Bilal reportedly first gained attention during the COVID-19 pandemic after creating an online classroom management platform for professors struggling with remote learning systems. The software quickly expanded across multiple educational institutions before eventually being acquired by a larger organization.
That early success pushed him toward entrepreneurship instead of a traditional academic path. At 18, he reportedly dropped out of university for the first time to focus on building technology products full-time.
After returning to Pakistan, Bilal launched a software consultancy that worked with international clients. These include organizations linked to the Australian government, the United Nations, and startups across the Middle East and the United States.
His academic journey later took him to Switzerland, where he pursued graduate research at ETH Zurich and worked in multiple research labs focused on advanced technologies and engineering systems.
The second major turning point reportedly came during a startup program in Helsinki, where a new robotics-focused idea attracted investor interest. Bilal then dropped out of university a second time to pursue the company full-time.
The startup secured backing from remarkable investors including DeepMind’s chief product officer, Hugging Face founder, Android creator, Google Maps creator, and Wolt CPO. Senior robotics executives from Scale AI and other firms also invested. Furthermore, the company’s mission is to remove the industry’s dependence on slow and costly real-world data collection.
Reports suggest the startup focuses on robotics simulation systems designed to reduce dependence on expensive real-world robot training environments. The company believes virtual simulations could transform robotics development similarly to how synthetic data accelerated artificial intelligence systems.
