Nicole Maffeo's path to entrepreneurship began with competitive chess—at one point she ranked in the top three in North America, developing what she calls "a love for problem solving." The idea for Gambit Robotics started in a fitting location: over chess games between Nicole and Viam CEO Eliot Horowitz in Washington Square Park.
They would often play chess there, and Nicole recalls Eliot sharing that it “would be really cool to build a nursing home robot where you add an iPad and then you can play chess with your loved ones." They talked about the many opportunities for robotics in the home, eventually deciding to go deeper on kitchen automation which is a surprisingly stagnant space.
"The stove was invented 150 years ago and has largely not changed," says Nicole. After hacking together a prototype, Nicole and Eliot formally co-founded Gambit Robotics this past spring.
"Now, Gambit Robotics is building a multimodal AI-powered hardware device that uses voice and vision models to guide and eventually automate the end-to-end cooking experience," Nicole explains.
Nicole and Eliot are preparing to launch Gambit Robotics this fall, having built the entire platform on Viam's robotics infrastructure in a matter of months. Her journey illustrates a broader trend: robotics is no longer the domain of specialists with massive engineering teams. With the right platform, smart teams can bring innovative ideas from concept to market faster than ever before.
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Building on Viam's platform proved crucial for rapid development and deployment. With a dozen devices now in testing, Nicole has experienced firsthand how the platform accelerates robotics development. “You can quickly spin up a model, train, test, improve it, and then deploy it to fleets in the real world,” she explains.
For Nicole—whose technical track record spans Bridgewater Associates, the founding team of a fashion AI startup, AI research at Google, and co-founding a blockchain infrastructure startup—Viam is making robotics truly accessible. “I think this really democratizes robotics. Anyone can spin up complex robotic systems without deep embedded systems expertise.”
Lewis Jones, a full-stack developer working closely with Nicole on Gambit, echoed this sentiment: “I don’t come from a robotics background. Viam has enabled me to bootstrap my knowledge at an accelerated rate by showing me exactly how to create a robotics product from scratch.”
The platform’s modularity particularly resonates with Nicole’s experience building AI infrastructure. “The Viam platform is highly modular, so a developer could easily swap in a different motion planner if desired—and this is true for all components and services in the Viam ecosystem.”
By unifying robotics development into a single platform, Viam eliminates the complexity of stitching together disparate systems. Nicole admitted, “I don’t know how people do that. I guess they’ve got a ton of different infrastructures that they’re cobbling together and having to build on their own. The Viam platform made it easy to build on a strong foundation, so we could focus on product development and user feedback.”
Lewis pointed to Viam’s fleet management pipeline and per-machine version control as the type of streamlined, critical infrastructure that has saved the team enormous time. The speed advantage is dramatic—what might take months or even years with traditional robotics development can now be accomplished in a fraction of the time.
The kitchen automation opportunity
Gambit Robotics makes cooking easy by creating an experience that is conversational and hands-free. Users can pick any recipe (by pasting a URL or snapping a picture) and Gambit sees everything that is happening on the stove, guiding the user every step of the way. "It takes you through the process from start to finish—helping you set the temperature, turn it up, turn it down. It’ll let you know something might be burning, water is boiling, rice needs more water, steak needs flipping etc." Nicole explains.
The target market is clear: "This is very much for novice and intermediate home cooks who just want to make things better," Nicole explains. Professional chefs aren't the focus—this is about empowering everyday home cooks to achieve better results with less time and less stress.
Why robotics now?
For startup founders considering robotics, the timing has never been better. The barriers that once meant only Fortune 500 companies could build in this space have largely disappeared, opening the door for entrepreneurs and smaller teams.
Robotics hardware is now far more affordable than even five years ago, which means that startups can build working prototypes without massive capital requirements.
It is also easier than ever to integrate different hardware components into a product. Previously, every sensor, motor, and camera required its own drivers and specialized knowledge to manage. This meant even simple hardware projects created significant technical complexity. Now, Viam's platform enables engineers to easily build with a combination of components, and easily swap parts in and out without rewriting code.
When you consider also the ubiquity of low-cost AI models that are available to make physical devices smarter, there has never been a better time to build in robotics. "AI models are continuing to improve, and hardware is at an inflection point where physical devices are more accessible than ever," Nicole explains. "Platforms like Viam make it far easier for entrepreneurs to get up and running."
Gambit Robotics is launching this fall, with early access available through their waitlist. For developers interested in building their own robotics applications, Viam's platform provides the tools to bring hardware and software together quickly and efficiently. Learn more about Viam's capabilities and get started with your own robotics project.
