# Pittsburgh hardware founder: water tank inspection robot seeks $750,000 pre-seed—local angels or Bay Area funding?

- Source: Reddit r/robotics
- Published: 2026-10-29T12:52:59.000Z
- RoboHot: https://robohot.news/en/items/igvr0mb47ysdt1iv2co3vvjg7
- Original: https://www.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/1xij4zo/hardware_founder_in_pittsburgh_raise_from_local/

## Summary

A Robotics Row team in Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh, is raising $750,000 in pre-seed funding for a water tank inspection robot. It already has two municipal utility pilots and a working prototype, but local backers are scarce. The founder used the articuler CLI to shortlist about 40 angels with industrial or robotics operations backgrounds; about one-third are in Pittsburgh or Cleveland, and the rest are on the East and West Coasts. The core dilemma: local investors can see the robot in person, while coastal investors write bigger checks but first ask whether the team will move to the Bay Area.