Smartbadge™ AI assistants for the physical workforce. Supercharging global teams with hands-free, actionable real-time insights. See how it works below 👇
Joined July 2026
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Augmodo retweeted
“As a new father at the time, number one pain point, feeding my kids.”
@Augmodo started with @rossfinman driving 100 miles in a minivan looking for baby formula during the 2022 shortage.
Stores said they had it in stock. They didn’t.
Ross had already sold his first startup to Niantic, where he spent years working on computer vision and mapping. Then it clicked: “Oh, okay, this is actually a computer vision mapping problem.”
Augmodo retweeted
A retail exec once told me: "My associates have twenty things to do. They can keep track of ten. Do not give them a twenty-first."
I talked to @adammendler about keeping the workplace human with physical AI. Every tool either subtracts load or adds to it.
adammendler.com/ai-in-the-wo…
Augmodo retweeted
"We have 5,000 images of aisle four from 50 different people walking down that aisle. What are the best three..."
Run a hundred-billion-parameter model on all of them? "Way overkill."
@rossfinman on why physical AI is a context problem, not a model-size problem.
Augmodo retweeted
Honored to make @RETHINK_Retail's 2027 Top AI Leaders list. While the market focuses on the 20% of the global workforce doing knowledge work, we focus on enabling the 80% on the frontlines. We are building physical AI for the physical workforce.
Credit goes to the @Augmodo team!
Augmodo retweeted
186 million sq ft a month.
Not from a robot. From dual-camera Smartbadges clipped to retail uniforms.
@Augmodo is at a $350M valuation on wearable spatial AI. CEO @rossfinman (MIT, Niantic) is aiming for 1B sq ft/month by end of 2026.
startuply.vc/article/augmodo…
Augmodo retweeted
“I’m terrible at first ideas, but great at getting whacked by the market.”
Our favorite line from @rossfinman. @Augmodo’s hardware evolution proves it:
AR glasses. Then a camera in a hat. Finally, a customer asked, “Can you just make it a brick that bounces down the stairs?”
Augmodo retweeted
Augmodo founder @rossfinman grew up on a 1,200-acre llama farm in Idaho.
He later told us you've “never experienced true fear until you've been chased down by 400 pounds, a very awkwardly galloping alpha llama.”
His teenage rebellion was swearing off farming and building robots from PCB boards, coat hangers, and tuna cans instead.
Augmodo retweeted
"Deep tech hardware in retail" was a contrarian viewpoint in 2023. We went from a consumer pain point, to a bad first idea, to the badge that serves the 80% of the workforce that isn't working behind a screen. Sat down with @TQVentures on how that happened:
Ross Finman grew up on a 1,200-acre llama farm in Idaho. Now he’s mapping the physical world with @Augmodo, starting with what’s actually happening inside stores: Is a product on the shelf? Is it in the right location? Is it at the right price?
There was a lot of experimenting in between, which makes sense for someone who describes his approach to building as being “terrible at first ideas, but great at getting whacked by the market.”
In the latest episode of The Study, we talk about the 100-mile search for baby formula that helped inspire Augmodo, what true product-market fit actually feels like, and the data problem behind physical AI.
Timestamps:
00:27 Growing up on a 1,200-acre llama farm
03:50 MIT PhD at 20 and never feeling like you’re doing enough
04:47 Building Escher Reality and surviving Apple’s ARKit launch
08:37 Mapping the world at Niantic
09:35 The 100-mile search for baby formula that led to Augmodo
12:55 AR glasses, a camera hat, and the road to “obvious”
17:03 How Augmodo maps the physical world
20:51 What product-market fit really feels like
23:43 Building an AI assistant for the physical workforce
27:32 The massive data problem behind physical AI
32:43 Taking Augmodo beyond retail
36:16 Building the Augmodo team
41:22 How small can the SmartBadge get?
42:55 Will AI replace physical workers?
44:29 How becoming a father changed Ross
Augmodo retweeted
Ross Finman grew up on a 1,200-acre llama farm in Idaho. Now he’s mapping the physical world with @Augmodo, starting with what’s actually happening inside stores: Is a product on the shelf? Is it in the right location? Is it at the right price?
There was a lot of experimenting in between, which makes sense for someone who describes his approach to building as being “terrible at first ideas, but great at getting whacked by the market.”
In the latest episode of The Study, we talk about the 100-mile search for baby formula that helped inspire Augmodo, what true product-market fit actually feels like, and the data problem behind physical AI.
Timestamps:
00:27 Growing up on a 1,200-acre llama farm
03:50 MIT PhD at 20 and never feeling like you’re doing enough
04:47 Building Escher Reality and surviving Apple’s ARKit launch
08:37 Mapping the world at Niantic
09:35 The 100-mile search for baby formula that led to Augmodo
12:55 AR glasses, a camera hat, and the road to “obvious”
17:03 How Augmodo maps the physical world
20:51 What product-market fit really feels like
23:43 Building an AI assistant for the physical workforce
27:32 The massive data problem behind physical AI
32:43 Taking Augmodo beyond retail
36:16 Building the Augmodo team
41:22 How small can the SmartBadge get?
42:55 Will AI replace physical workers?
44:29 How becoming a father changed Ross
Augmodo retweeted
Wrapping up a great week at @Ai4Conferences
Excited by the momentum behind Physical AI and proud that @Augmodo’s Smartbadge is leading the way with AI assistants built for the physical workforce.
We’ll be back in Vegas for @Groceryshop next month with even more to share.
Augmodo retweeted
Incredible prescience from Marcus Aurelius in 1864 to first draw the connection between the camera and the pencil. 162 years later, more people carry a camera than any other writing device. It can capture art, data, and anything else with fantastic speed+depth+breadth. It's the perfect tool.
Snapchat was ahead of its time 15 years ago, and anyone who has been surprised by its staying power doesn't understand the way that young people communicate. The next step is the proliferation of the camera to the enterprise.
Companies like Augmodo, Verkada, and Genlogs, among others, are deploying cameras to capture what pencils and paper once did, and there's still so much ground left to cover.
Hardware is both cheap and high quality, and advances in computer vision, memory capacity, and edge computing means that the camera's attainable surface area only gets bigger and bigger.
Augmodo retweeted
A llama farm in Idaho. A robot built out of tuna cans and coat hangers. A $350M company solving a problem most people don't even know exists.
@rossfinman's origin story for @Augmodo is unlike anything we've filmed.
The Study, coming soon🎥
ALT TQ's San Francisco studio, filming a new episode of The Study with Ross Finman and Schuster Tanger
Augmodo retweeted
Augmodo is already dominating its niche in retail tech—but this is just the beginning
The company just announced a $21M fundraise led by TQ Ventures at a $350M valuation
I caught up with Will McKelvey (Lerer Hippeau) to break down why Augmodo is building AI assistants for the physical workforce, what convinced him to lead the seed round two years ago, and how the company has scaled since
Also, is there a "llama farmer mafia" in tech? Something to pay attention to