Robots that work where automation never could.
Why this problem.
A structural labour shortage
Singapore's cleaning workforce is aging faster than new workers enter it. Southeast Asia and Europe face the same shift. The cause is demographic: fewer people will do this work, and demand for well-maintained commercial space keeps growing.
Operators want to automate. The tools they can buy have not worked in the environments they manage. Griffin gives these operators machines that share the load.
No longer hardware-limited
Mobility platforms and sensor arrays can now execute the physical tasks facilities require. The hardware moves, reaches, and senses.
These machines still cannot perceive a new situation and act without explicit programming. Rooms vary. Shifts change. Intelligence is the bottleneck.
The AI-limited era
Foundation models give physical systems two capabilities they lacked: reasoning from language and generalizing from limited examples.
The remaining challenge is grounding: training models that connect perception to action and adapt based on live sensor data.
Griffin Labs exists for this work. We train embodied AI on data from live facilities and build the robotic systems that run those models. Each deployment feeds training data back into the next.
Physical AI is an engineering problem now.
- Founded
- 2025, Singapore
- Stage
- Building & deploying
- Focus
- Facilities management, Southeast Asia
- Careers
- See open roles
- Contact
- raph@griffinlabs.ai
Who we are.
Raphael Yee
Co-founder · CEO
Previously software engineer at Carousell, where he worked across data, AI/ML, and backend systems at scale for 10M+ MAU. Started Griffin Labs within LionsBot in early 2025.
Dr Soujanya Poria
Co-founder · Chief AI Officer
Associate Professor at NTU. Globally recognized expert in VLA models. President's Young Scientist and MIT TR35 Innovator. 40,000+ citations.
Advisors
Victor Neo
First employee at Carousell, served as Director of Engineering and scaled the platform to unicorn status.
Dr Mohan Rajesh Elara
Provost's Chair Professor at SUTD, LionsBot co-founder. One of the world's top reconfigurable robotics researchers.