Jean-Baptiste Kempf, the French serial entrepreneur and lead developer of the widely used VLC Media Player, is now turning his attention to the burgeoning field of robotics with his new venture, Kyber. Convinced that millions of robots and drones will soon become commonplace, Kempf has developed an infrastructure layer designed to control these remote devices in real time, drawing parallels between the ubiquity of his open-source video software and the future of autonomous machines.
Kyber's core offering is a software development kit (SDK) that meticulously synchronises video, audio, sensor data, and control inputs, prioritising minimal latency. This capability is critical for the effective operation of 'physical AI' – artificial intelligence systems that interact with the real world through physical devices. The Paris-based startup recently secured a $5 million funding round, led by Lightspeed, an investment firm known for backing prominent AI companies. Lightspeed highlighted that the effectiveness of physical AI is intrinsically linked to the underlying systems that power it, underscoring Kyber's foundational role.
While physical AI is a significant application, Kyber's potential extends much further. Kempf indicates the platform is built for any scenario where the operator, the computational power, and the action itself are not co-located. This emphasis on remote control and speed, which inspired the company's name, is rooted in Kempf's extensive experience in video-streaming technology. The company’s approach to eliminating lag leverages insights from its origins as a side project during Kempf's time as CTO at cloud gaming startup Shadow, alongside deep expertise in Internet of Things (IoT) optimisation to tune performance across diverse devices at scale.
The ambition for Kyber is to manage fleets far exceeding the current largest deployments, which typically number in the thousands. Kempf envisions managing millions of devices, a scale that significantly raises the importance of observability – ensuring systems are functioning correctly, especially as AI agents increasingly manage entire networks. Even at a smaller scale, the ability to push software updates remotely without needing physical access to each device offers considerable operational benefits for businesses.
True to Kempf’s open-source ethos, Kyber’s core project is freely available, while the company offers a productised version for enterprise clients. Beyond software, Kyber provides hands-on, custom deployment services through a team of forward-deployed engineers (FDEs). The company, headquartered in Paris with offices in San Francisco and Singapore, is already in commercial deployment with clients in sectors such as defence, telecommunications, robotics, and AI, with a particular focus on robotics, drones, and remote IT access.