From VC to Founder During COVID: The Formic Origin Story

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Saman Farid, CEO and Founder of Formic, explained the moment he decided to walk away from a 15-year venture capital career to start a robotics company. The timing was objectively terrible. It was October 2020, the world was locked down, and he was expecting his first child.

But sometimes the worst timing is the only timing that matters.

The Empty Shelves

For 15 years, Saman invested in robotics and AI companies as a venture capitalist. He maintained what he calls “a little bit naively and naively optimistically” the belief that once robotics technology worked, adoption would naturally follow.

Then COVID hit and grocery store shelves sat empty. Saman spent time with manufacturers of basic consumer products and discovered something crucial: “There’s currently one and a half million unfilled jobs in manufacturing looking for people,” he explains. “During COVID that number was significantly higher, and 10,000 baby boomers per day are retiring out of the manufacturing industry and are not being backfilled.”

The factories existed. The production capacity was there. But manufacturers couldn’t find workers. Meanwhile, Saman had spent 15 years watching robotics technology mature to the point where it could solve this problem.

“Despite the fact that the robotics technology works, there’s still this missing step in terms of getting it to a place where it’s useful for the people who need it the most,” he says.

The Builder’s Itch

This realization coincided with something Saman had been feeling for a while. Being a venture capitalist was satisfying, but something fundamental was missing.

“When you’re a builder, there’s an itch that can never get scratched,” Saman explains. No matter how much he enjoyed investing, it wasn’t the same as building something himself.

“Being a VC is a job I can do when I’m 60. Until then, I should really spend all the energy that I have building stuff,” he says. This wasn’t about whether venture capital was a good career. It was about recognizing that he had a finite window of energy and drive, and he was spending it on the wrong thing.

The Impossible Calculation

So Saman faced a decision. On paper, staying in venture capital made sense. The world was in crisis. Nobody knew how long COVID would last. Starting a hardware company during a global pandemic seemed irrational.

And then there was his personal situation. “Not only was it kind of smack in the middle of COVID when there was a lot of uncertainty in the world, I was actually also expecting my first child right around then,” he recalls. “And I think I had my first child two months after we started the company.”

Most people would call this terrible timing. But Saman had identified a massive opportunity. “I realized that this was a, you know, a $10 billion or bigger opportunity. And if I didn’t jump on it now, I would regret it for the rest of my life,” he says.

This is the calculation that matters for founders: not whether the timing is convenient, but whether you can live with not trying.

Why Bad Timing Can Be Perfect Timing

What looked like terrible timing turned out to be exactly right. COVID had accelerated the manufacturing labor crisis to the point where it became undeniable. The crisis created urgency, willingness to try new solutions, and desperation for any way to keep production running.

Saman’s years as a VC proved crucial. He understood how to raise capital in crisis conditions, knew which investors would back hard tech during uncertainty, and had relationships with potential team members. His outsider perspective let him see what insiders couldn’t: the problem wasn’t technology, it was accessibility.

“There’s a lot to say about the unsung heroes of startups, which are the spouses and families of founders who really make it possible to do what you do,” Saman notes.

The First Steps

October 2020. Saman pulled together a few people who believed in the vision, secured early funding from investors who understood the opportunity, and Formic was born.

The founding hypothesis was clear: robotics technology worked, but there was a missing step in making it accessible to the people who needed it most. Everything Formic built—the robotics-as-a-service model, the performance guarantees, the nationwide maintenance network—emerged from this founding insight.

The Principle

Saman’s story reveals something important about timing: perfect timing doesn’t exist. There’s always a reason to wait.

“I think when you know you have to do something, you do it,” Saman says. The conviction that matters isn’t about whether conditions are optimal. It’s about whether you can live with the regret of not trying.

For builders, this creates a specific calculation. You can stay in the comfortable job—the one you can do when you’re 60. Or you can spend your energy while you have it on the thing that will haunt you if you don’t build it.

The COVID timing that looked terrible was actually perfect. It revealed the problem clearly and created urgency. Sometimes the “worst” timing is the moment when the problem becomes undeniable enough that solutions can finally gain traction.

Where They Are Now

Today, Formic operates in about 100 factories across the US, making everything from matcha powder for Starbucks to metal parts for aircraft. The company has raised over $60 million.

The builder’s itch that drove Saman to leave venture capital is getting scratched. The empty grocery shelves that revealed the opportunity are filling up again—with products made by Formic robots. And the baby born two months after the company started is now growing up alongside the company itself.

The impossible timing worked out. Not because it was actually perfect, but because Saman decided it was the only timing that mattered.

As he discovered: you either build it now, or you regret it forever.