Bucket Robotics’ Journey: From Y Combinator to CES 2026 Triumph
In the lead-up to the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Bucket Robotics, a San Francisco-based startup backed by Y Combinator, faced logistical challenges. CEO and founder Matt Puchalski, wary of potential flight delays, opted to personally drive the company’s equipment to the event. He rented a Hyundai Santa Fe, packed it tightly with booth materials, and embarked on a 12-hour rain-soaked journey to ensure everything arrived on time.
Upon arrival, Bucket Robotics set up in the automotive-focused West Hall, joining thousands of exhibitors at the annual tech conference. Despite their modest booth, Puchalski found the experience invaluable, emphasizing the importance of being tireless, observant, and always ready to pitch.
Puchalski, an engineer by trade, spent the previous decade working on autonomous vehicles at companies like Uber, Argo AI, Ford’s subsidiary Latitude AI, and SoftBank-backed Stack AV. These roles helped him build deep connections in the automotive industry, which proved beneficial during CES.
Throughout the week, Puchalski attended industry networking events and engaged in discussions about balancing quality and manufacturing yield with peers like Sanjay Dastoor, founder of mobility startups Skip and Boosted, both of which also emerged from Y Combinator.
During a breakfast meeting, Puchalski and sales associate Max Joseph prepared for the conference’s Media Day. Puchalski shared that Bucket Robotics focuses on using advanced vision systems for surface quality inspections, aiming to automate tasks traditionally performed manually and to support the broader effort to onshore manufacturing.
For instance, ensuring the flawless surface of car door handles is crucial, as customers interact with them daily. While structural integrity checks are well-established, detecting surface imperfections like color inconsistencies or scuff marks remains challenging. Bucket Robotics addresses this by generating simulated defects from CAD files, enabling their vision software to quickly identify issues on production lines without manual labeling. Their models can deploy in minutes and adapt to changes in products or production lines, integrating seamlessly into existing systems without additional hardware.
This approach has already attracted customers in the automotive and defense sectors, positioning Bucket Robotics as a dual-use company.
When the show floor opened, the first two hours were intense, with attendees engaging with the startup’s team and exploring their technology. Interest remained consistent throughout the week, leading to technical discussions with professionals from manufacturing, robotics, and automation fields. Following CES, Puchalski spent the subsequent week on follow-up calls with potential customers and investors.
While CES presented its challenges, Bucket Robotics emerged successfully. The next steps involve building the business, scaling operations, fundraising, and securing commercial deals.
Puchalski doesn’t view his company’s automation efforts as a threat to existing jobs. He notes that manual inspections involve not only spotting defects but also identifying their root causes. Automating surface quality inspection has been a longstanding goal in the manufacturing industry, and Bucket Robotics’ advancements are met with enthusiasm by potential customers.
