No Hydraulics, No Problem: How Rise Robotics Is Quietly Disrupting a $750 Billion Industry (feat. Hiten Sonpal)

About this episode

Hiten Sonpal discusses the limitations of hydraulics and how RISE Robotics is innovating in the robotics space.

Hydraulics — the technology that powers excavators, military vehicles, oil rigs, and factory floors — have been around since the 1800s. They work by pressurizing fluid to create force. They’re powerful. They’re proven. And according to Hiten Sonpal, CEO of RISE Robotics, they’ve hit their ceiling. Hiten joined the Snowpal Podcast to talk about what his company is building, what he’s learned from shipping over 9 million units at iRobot, and why he raised $5.7 million from the crowd instead of from VCs. It’s a conversation worth your full attention.

People in this episode

Hosts: Krish Palaniappan, Varun Palaniappan

Guest: Hiten Sonpal

Topics covered

• Hydraulics
• Robotics
• Disruption
• Technology
• Funding
• Innovation

Keywords

• hydraulics
• RISE Robotics
• Hiten Sonpal
• innovation
• robotics
• funding
• iRobot

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: RISE Robotics, iRobot

More episodes of Software Development, Finance and AI

• Beyond RAG: Building Production-Grade AI Coworkers for the Enterprise (feat. Karl Simon) · May 21, 2026 · 1h 13m
• From SEO to AEO: How to Optimize Your Website for AI Agents (feat. Frank Vitetta) · May 14, 2026 · 1h 58m
• Macroeconomic impacts of AI adoption (feat. Dr. Kelly Monahan) · May 6, 2026 · 51 min
• Governing Intelligence: How AI Is Reshaping Public Sector Software (feat. Andrew Stockwell) · May 6, 2026 · 1h 4m
• From Wall Street to Her Street: How to Close the Financial Confidence Gap (feat. Jessica Perrone) · April 29, 2026 · 40 min
• Building Through Uncertainty: A Conversation on Resilience, AI, and the Future of Software (feat. Asia Solnyshkina) · April 27, 2026 · 1h 1m