# Clockwork

AI and robots for the $625B beauty industry

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/clockwork
- Entity ID: wefunder:company:140054
- Last updated: 2026-06-16T05:03:06Z
- Generated at: 2026-06-16T17:44:40Z

## Quick facts
- $2.96M year 1 average contract value (ACV) in signed contracts
- 19,000+ customers served
- Monthly recurring revenue grew 475% since March of this year
- Robots deployed in NYC, Miami, DC, Beverly Hills and the Bay Area
- 10,000 inbound partnership requests representing 40,000 locations for our robots
- Leadership team from Dropbox, Nvidia, e.l.f., Clorox, Uber & Toyota
- Backed by Initialized Capital, Pipeline Capital, Co-founder of Dropbox & former CMO of Sephora
- Our AI, fueled by 1.65TB/month of data, means our robot is more skilled than the average manicurist

## Active fundraises
- wefunder:fundraise:92594: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)
- wefunder:fundraise:92595: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)

## Story
Clockwork builds AI-powered robots to make beauty services more convenient and accessible than ever before.We live busy lives and too often de-prioritize self-care moments. Not anymore. Our vision is to build robots that make self-care a breeze.Drawing upon our expertise in robotics, cloud infrastructure, and AI, we're entirely re-envisioning robots and their roles in our daily lives. We imagine a future where robots are omnipresent, much like how they are in industrial settings like assembly lines today. While our beachhead is beauty services, Clockwork's design serves a bigger purpose - ensuring that everyday robots are built with safety, reliability, ethics, and efficiency in mind.The founders of the world’s most innovative companies like Dropbox, along with notable silicon valley VCs Initialized Capital and Pipeline Capital, all agree: Clockwork is a game-changer for the $1.5T self-care industry.Self-care, including beauty services, play a vital role in our daily lives. Self-care is tied to increased confidence, reduced stress, and elevated levels of hormones that produce happiness. Despite all this, people are not getting beauty services as frequently as they want. The average American spends $3,576 a year on beauty services, compounded by 80+ hours in lost productivity during service delivery. As our lives have gotten busier and the constraints on the average consumer have changed, the beauty service experience has remained stagnant. When it comes to beauty services, consumers are not being met where they spend most of their time- they must plan ahead, schedule, and travel to access them, further exacerbating the time commitment to engage in self-care. From CEOs who want to look their best before dashing out to meet crucial clients, to new parents juggling daycare, work re-entry, and daily pressures, the prospect of enjoying beauty services remains frustratingly out of reach.With Clockwork, beauty services can be delivered affordably, in minutes, where people already spend their time. We’re starting with nails. 1 in 3 people paint their nails and ⅔ of women say they would always have their nails painted if it was quick, easy, and cheap.An unprecedented number of people are working from home and brick and mortar retailers are increasingly competing with e-commerce. Commercial office operators and retailers alike need innovative ways to lure consumers out of their homes.To survive these monumental societal changes, offices and brick and mortar retailers must provide consumers with experiences that cannot be replicated at home. Source: Radyiant's State of the In-Store Experience report, 2021We partner with commercial and residential real estate operators, retailers, salons, spas and more to deploy our beauty services robots at locations they manage, creating a delightful experience and convenience for our beauty customers. From ideation, to prototype, to commercial launch, Clockwork has brought our first product to market: a robot that paints nails faster and more accurately than a human - at half the price. We have an impressive patented tech stack that could only be built by our team, given our unique background in robotics, cloud infrastructure, and machine learning. Clockwork has built  proprietary and scalable architecture for beauty robots, including  labeling tools, datasets, neural networks, localization, calibration techniques, and more. Within a second, our robot uses structured light cameras to capture over 100 images of the nail to create a 3D map. On a small scale previously unheard of, our custom AI network determines exactly where to paint and what to avoid with sub-millimeter accuracy. High resolution 3D map of the nail annotated with AIOur custom algorithm then directs the robot’s actions while painting the nail, taking into account the incredibly complex way nail polish behaves as a non-newtonian liquid, the shape of the nail, its contours, the pressure applied by the robot, and other variables. Through our cloud-based platform, beauty services remain uninterrupted, as robots are efficiently serviced remotely—no waiting for technicians.Unlike many other consumer robotics startups, we’re in the field, generating real revenue.Partners pay an upfront hardware deployment fee, a monthly fee, and a percentage of revenue generated from the services provided by the robot to end-users.Our customers love that we give them self-care that fits into their lives on their budget, all while delivering a seamless and delightful experience.Our regulars become our strongest advocates and most of our traffic is driven by word-of-mouth. Many of our customers have posted videos on social media that have garnered multi-million views.Our partners love the additional traffic we deliver, and the increased time spent by customers at their commercial and retail locations. Note: future projections cannot be guaranteed. Our partnership approach allows us to scale alongside enterprise customers who have  large real estate footprints, enabling us to efficiently deploy our beauty service robots at scale.Our over 10,000 requests for a robot with tremendous revenue potential demonstrate that the market is ready for us and give us a robust sales pipeline for future locations.Note: future projections cannot be guaranteed. With engineering and experience leading teams at Dropbox, Nvidia, e.l.f., Clorox, Toyota, and Uber, our team is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the unique opportunity in front of us.  We’ve brought automation to the nail segment of the beauty industry, but we’re just getting started. Clockwork isn’t just a beauty services robot, but a true beauty robotics enterprise reinventing the beauty industry, all while making the all important act of self-care a universal reality.Clockwork is redefining self-care, akin to the biggest industry disruptors of our time. With Clockwork, fast and budget-friendly self-care is a reality, freeing up time for the things people love.We are backed by Garry Tan’s Initialized Capital, Pipeline Capital, and notable angel investors including Balaji Srinivasan (ex-CTO of Coinbase and former Partner at a16z), Max Mullen (Co-founder of Instacart via Product Co-op), Julie Bornstein (ex-COO Stitch Fix, ex-CMO Sephora), Dawn Dobras (fmr CEO Credo Beauty) among others. We’re now inviting our community to invest alongside our lead investor, Dropbox Co-founder and ex-CTO, Arash Ferdowsi and join Clockwork as we reimagine the beauty services industry.  Note: We are the first to our knowledge to build the first AI-powered fully autonomous nail painting robot, but don't have definitive proof of that statement.

## FAQ
1. **Hi, congrats on your success to date and interesting use case for AI. My questions are about the execution: 1. How long does it take from start to finish to paint a customer's nails (assuming ten digits)? 2. Can the robot do a full manicure including removing nail polish, cutt...**
   - Hello LD, Thank you for your questions. 1. It takes about 30-60 seconds per nail for actual painting. Once you get the hang of the experience, people can get all 10 fingers done in under 10 minutes. For first timers, there’s a bit of a learning curve, so we recommend setting aside about 20 minutes. 2. The robot currently removes regular nail polish and paints nails. We will also do gel nail polish and designs in the near future (no hardware changes are needed for this and this is included in ...
2. **Hi there, a) What is your most recent monthly burn rate? b) What is your most recent monthly cash on hand? c) Are you raising a parallel angel or VC round simultaneously? If yes, who is investing in this round?**
   - Hi Teddy, Thanks for your questions. You can see all of this information, and more under the “details” section here: https://wefunder.com/clockwork/details Since then our burn has improved from $270k/month to $226k. You can see our institutional investors and all our amazing angels on the main page (everyone except XFactor and Julie, who were our earlier investors, have invested at the early bird terms valuation). Arash Ferdowsi, the co-founder of Dropbox and former CTO is leading the regulat...
3. **The achievements and progress of your team are indeed impressive. I wanted to know more about 1. Founder Investments: Could you provide details regarding the cumulative capital invested by the founders in Clockwork until now? 2. Product Upgrades: With regard to the product roa...**
   - Thank you for the kind words Khushbu. Answering your questions below. 1. I provided some early capital for the company $29,500 that you can see in our financial section. Aside from that, my cofounder and I went a while without paying ourselves, and only began to pay ourselves (well below what we would make in an industry job) after we raised our seed round. We think of investment not only in terms of capital but in how much of our lives we’ve dedicated to building this company. 🙂 2. We can pr...
4. **Hi there! My name is Kevin and I run a startup investing blog called CROWDSCALE. I'm interested in interviewing Renuka or Aaron for an upcoming article. Can you reach out to hellocrowdscale@gmail.com if you'd like to connect? Blog for reference: https://crowdscale.beehiiv.com/**
   - Sharing with our audience: https://crowdscale.beehiiv.com/p/clockwork
5. **good stuff! you did a very good job explaining things on the video. very impressive team! 1. the machines how long does it take to make one? 2. if you can say how much does it cost on average to lease one? 3.how often does someone put the colors in the machine 4. where ever yo...**
   - Thank you for your questions and for investing, John. Apologies for the delay here, been deep in sales calls. Answering your questions below. 1. To date, we’ve been building robots in-house at our San Francisco Office. To scale, we’re now moving to a contract manufacturer (this will take a few months to onboard). And in Q1 2024, we hope to ramp up production with our manufacturer. 2. The lease consists of an upfront fee, a monthly fee, and a percentage of revenue from end-users. Depending on ...

## Team
- Renuka Apte (CEO & Co-Founder)
- Aaron Feldstein (CTO & Co-Founder)
- Erik Sunden (Founding Engineer)
- Mara McCune (CMO)

## Q&A
- Q: Here are my thoughts on Clockwork’s recent decision—a move that has left me, and likely many of you, stunned and frustrated. For those who haven’t caught up, here’s the gist: Clockwork raised $7 million through WeFunder, pulled in $740k in revenue, and built a groundbreaking manicure robot that promised to shake up the beauty industry. But instead of pushing forward, the founders have shut down operations and sold the technology to 10Beauty, leaving us—the investors who fueled this journey—with nothing. A company with a first-of-its-kind product and real revenue doesn’t just collapse overnight. Yet, Clockwork’s leadership decided that selling out was their best move. To me, this feels less like a calculated strategy and more like a hasty, self-serving retreat. It’s hard to fathom how they couldn’t find a way to keep going—or at least fight harder to preserve value for us. Instead, they opted for a clean exit, pocketing whatever benefits came their way while we’re left empty-handed. The numbers make it even more perplexing. They burned through $7 million in less than a year, only to hand over their tech without securing a dime for investors. That’s not a pivot or a tough call—it’s a surrender that dodges accountability. When we invested in Clockwork, we weren’t just writing checks—we were buying into a vision and trusting the team to deliver. That trust has been squandered. The founders had options: explore new funding, pivot the business model, or even file for bankruptcy to distribute whatever assets remained. Instead, they chose a path that conveniently ignores the people who made their work possible. It’s a betrayal of both trust and capital, and it stings all the more because of the potential we all saw in that manicure robot. This isn’t just about Clockwork—it’s about what we expect from the companies we back on WeFunder. If founders can raise millions, build something innovative, and then walk away without a second thought for investors, what does that say about accountability in this space? I’m disappointed, but more than that, I’m determined to see us demand better. I’d love to hear your take.
- Q: So you guys sold the assets then fleeced 1,700 investors out of their money. Got it. I’m done with Wefunder after this.
- Q: Class action lawsuit?
- Q: This sale to 10Beauty. The most perplexing thing about this is that the founders did not even have the courtesy to inform their investors who helped them build their company. Most of us learned about it from the news media. I see so many questions being asked here and not a single response from them!!! I wanted to back a female founder and trusted her sweet talk in all those webinars and Kingscrowd pitches. It seems like all marketing gimmicks. These founders should never be trusted again. Let's make sure that they never fleece another investor. Ever. A lawsuit?? On Wefunder it says that all money was used to pay debt. They raised $2,071,830 on Wefunder using Reg CF and another $5,290,500 Off Wefunder on the same terms I guess using Reg D. I'd like to know if both kinds of investors treated the same or if it was just the RegCF investors who were cheated in this fashion. There is no transparency at all. We should all lodge a complaint to SEC about this.
- Q: Dang I never was informed that the company was getting acquired. How did the company go downhill so fast. So the over 7 million they raised investors won't see a dime. They could have let investors know things were getting bad earlier not once they sold company. 3rd company on wefunder to go out of business in a month. These founders don't say nothing to investors until it is too late. Dang..they were talking about on a call with the lady from sephora that they did or was getting the price down to 10k then revenue of 500k made it a no brainer What did they do with the over 7 million raised. Something doesn't add up.. I don't see how they got acquired yet investors didn't receive a dime. Yeah something doesn't add it we all heard them say they were getting price down to 10k then 500k revenue. If they sold cause they didn't money for inventory etc we could have easily helped with that. We have millions we lend for purchase order financing, inventory etc. Problem with these companies they say we have an amazing team and don't think maybe one of our many investors could help. Companies always say we will stay in constant communication yet many don't. Company going out if business that is something you want to let investors know right away. Many may feel like they got scammed and report them. Could have been avoided if their communication was alot better.
- Q: You raised $7 mil+, and investors get nothing? That sounds like a set-up deal. Why did you not file for bankruptcy and maybe have the company sold to a smart firm?
- Q: For anyone else looking and just realizing Clockwork was sold and your investment is worthless - it appears the founders fleeced everyone on WeFunder and even deleted their profiles, but are still active on Linked In (linkedin.com/in/renuka-apte) behaving as if they led the most successful company ever to acquisition... Meanwhile investors didn't get a single update, note, or comment about the company being in stress or sold. Appears as if they purposefully used vulnerable crowdfunding investors money to raise funds to payoff debt and immediately sell the company to profit the VCs/Founders with no intention of making the WeFunder investors right. I've filed a complaint with the SEC so they can look into it, I encourage anyone else affected to do the same: https://www.sec.gov/submit-tip-or-complaint
- Q: What happened that Safe investors got left with zero dollars after the sale? Was the company in financial hardship and never fully disclosed it?
- Q: Does the recent update mean we do not get money back from the sale?
- Q: Hi there, a) What is your most recent monthly burn rate? b) What is your most recent monthly cash on hand? c) Are you raising a parallel angel or VC round simultaneously? If yes, who is investing in this round?
  - A: Hi Teddy, Thanks for your questions. You can see all of this information, and more under the “details” section here: https://wefunder.com/clockwork/details Since then our burn has improved from $270k/month to $226k. You can see our institutional investors and all our amazing angels on the main page (everyone except XFactor and Julie, who were our earlier investors, have invested at the early bird terms valuation). Arash Ferdowsi, the co-founder of Dropbox and former CTO is leading the regulation crowdfunding part of our round. We may consider taking additional strategic investments off the Wefunder platform as we gear up for a Series A.
- Q: I'd also note the suspicious behavior of the founder not posting updates to this site during the entire post-investment period, with no justifiable explanation. Also, the timing of the sale is highly suspect, being just over a 1 year since closing on investor funds. Seems like just enough time to have plausible deniability about any pre-conceived plans.
- Q: Merger of Clockwork & 10Beauty - What It Means For crowdfunding Investors of Clockwork? Answer is nothing. The lead investor signed on the agreement that we would not benefit. Not a ROI- zero . So we were not into the equation on the 1st place hmm.
- Q: I agree with the sentiment here. $7.3 million dollars were raised, along with copious positive publicity and news of new rollouts and partnerships, but never a status update suggesting any kind of trouble for the company, before total and final capitulation with zero return for any their non-insider investors. This smells like a classic case of "take the money and run". I suspect the company was significantly struggling before they even raised funds on Wefunder, and used the funds to position the company for an exit that would provide some benefit to the founders who otherwise would have been left empty-handed. That's a somewhat generous interpretation. Depending on their relationship with the 10beauty, there could potentially be outright fraud involved. They may have a legal right to close a business and provide zero returns to SAFE investors, but if they acted in bad faith, the story is not over. Nothing quite like funding R&D with investors from one company, only to transfer it at a discount to another. Looks like a case worth further investigation.
- Q: Why did we never receive any details when the company was sold?
- Q: Hello, As there was an acquisition (even if it was an acquire-hire of assets) shouldn't investors be getting equivalent shares in the acquiring company at a minimum if no payout is planned? Please advise as to how I can transfer my shares from Clockwork into stock options for 10Beauty. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/10beauty-acquires-clockwork-bringing-together-the-two-leading-innovators-in-autonomous-manicures-302384172.html  https://wefunder.com/clockwork