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A robot that grows like a plant. Built by a Moldovan
Moldovan data scientist Dorin Cerbu helped create an award-winning soft robot that “grows” into narrow spaces. So that humans wouldn’t have to risk their lives.
18 Oct 2025
Cerbu used to take guitar lessons during his PhD in solid state physics at the University of Leuven, one of Europe’s oldest universities. His research focused on strange materials. How electricity behaves when things get really small and cold. Why some materials can carry current with zero resistance.
But the real life lesson came from his guitar teacher. If something didn’t sound right, his teacher would adjust the finger, the string, the posture. Until it did.
“You have to be able to do it. You just have to do it,” — Dorin recalls the words of his teacher.
Hopping between Belgium and his homeland, Moldova, Cerbu took that mindset into science. He has published academic articles in top journals, including Nature Communications. Years later, together with his teammates, he built a soft robot that crawls through tanks and pipes.
His soft-robotics company, XiniX AI, was born when he and his future co-founders joined the global XPRIZE Rainforest challenge. From 320 teams they climbed to the final 13 and tested their “Sprout” robot in Singapore’s rainforest. That trip set their course: build soft robots that grow like plants to bring back reliable data from spaces built for fluids, not lungs.
XiniX AI’ co-founder Dorin Cerbu lives between Belgium and his homeland, Moldova. Photo credit: Dorin Cerbu
What began as an experiment in jungle robotics is now scaling into a company with international pilots, industrial clients, and European recognition. In 2025, XiniX AI won second place in the euRobotics Renaud Champion Award, a prize for Europe’s most promising robotics startups. They run paid pilots with several European industrial operators, but the team keeps client names and numbers under wraps while contracts are still in testing.
A Soft Robot That Saves Lives
Confined-space inspections are among the most dangerous and costly jobs in heavy industry. In the United States alone, over 1,000 workers died in such spaces between 2011 and 2018. That’s more than 120 deaths every year!
These are places like tanks, boilers and pipelines. To inspect them, people must climb inside after everything is shut down. The air is often bad. The heat is high. And if corrosion goes unnoticed, leaks can follow.
That is where XiniX comes in.
The original Xinix AI team at the Rainforest Competition in Singapore. Photo credit: Xinix AI.
The team built a robot called Sprout. Eric Herrero designed the mechanics and movement. Dorin Cerbu focused on the electronics, the sensors, and the AI brain called RoboScan.
Drones are too noisy, and rigid crawlers get stuck. “A soft, growing robot could go where others cannot,” says Eric Herrero. “Sprout is a robot that can grow like a plant.”
Sprout grows through pipes and corners like a sock that moves inside out. The tip has sensors and cameras; the data goes to AI, which can detect corrosion and cracks. All the while, the operator can chat with the robot and give commands.
This way, companies can prevent accidents, avoid long shutdowns, and keep track of the health of their equipment.
What the operator can see once the robot has entered a confined space. Photo credit: Xinix AI
“These accidents should stop,” says co-founder Jaskaran Sandhu. “If humans must enter, everything has to cool down.” A robot doesn’t have those limits. You can send it in at 80 or 90 degrees and save hours or days of downtime.
“A single facility has kilometers of pipe; leaks add up,” adds Herrero. Detecting corrosion early helps prevent spills.
“And that means less waste,” continues Sandhu. “You stop replacing parts ‘because the calendar says so’ and fix what actually needs fixing.”
“We call it a data scientist in a bottle,” says Cerbu wirth a smile.
Today, the team consists of three founders and one full-time engineer. “We built the idea first, and only later figured out how to sell it,” recalls Jaskaran Sandhu.
By 2025, the team joined Odense Robotics and began a paid pilot with a major energy company. The idea is to have a fully certified product by next autumn.
XiniX AI co-founders, from left to right: Eric Herrero, Dorin Cerbu, and Jaskaran Sandhu. “A soft, growing robot could go where others cannot,” says co-founder Eric Herrero. “Sprout is a robot that can grow like a plant.” Photo credit: Dorin Cerbu
Moldova’s growing footprint
Cerbu’s story is not an exception. In Chișinău, StartUp Moldova supports both emerging and experienced founders, helping them connect, scale, and access resources to build globally relevant products.
Among them are the founders of Argus AI. They built a virtual reality platform that lets neurosurgeons rehearse complex brain operations before touching a patient. What used to be possible only with half-million-euro neuronavigation machines can now be done for a fraction of the cost. Two surgeries have already been performed using their 3D planning tool, and clinical trials are underway in Europe and beyond.
In Silicon Valley, Aspect Health, founded by 22-year-old Moldovan entrepreneur Gleb Babiy, scaled from a student project to millions in revenue in less than a year. The company built an AI-guided hormonal health platform for women, combining wearable devices with real-time recommendations. Investors from Techstars and uVentures backed it, while the founder of Flo, one of the world’s most popular women’s health apps, came on board as an advisor.
What ties them together is not the field, but the attitude. Moldovan founders often leave because their country cannot yet offer the labs or the funding, but they carry the mindset with them. That mindset now runs through XiniX: a small team insisting that dangerous, wasteful, expensive inspections should no longer be acceptable.
“We’re one of the first startups bringing this into the commercial domain,” says Herrero.
“It is quite fun to operate our Sprout, to see how it takes life under your actions,” adds Cerbu. “We are preparing for the tsunami of orders and for the scaling.”
He then pauses and proudly adds: “We will become a unicorn!”
This article has been written by Journo Birds, with the support of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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