RoboticsCats' AURA Foresight Team Takes Third Place in $11M XPRIZE Wildfire Competition

Written By Doug Erickson

Santa Cruz Accelerates alum RoboticsCats and its international consortium, AURA Foresight, earned third place and $500,000 in XPRIZE Wildfire's Autonomous Wildfire Response track, capping a four-year journey from team formation to podium.

A Santa Cruz Accelerates alum is on the podium in one of the world's toughest climate-tech challenges. AURA Foresight, the international consortium that includes Hong Kong–based RoboticsCats, has been named the Third Place Awardee, with a $500,000 prize, in the Autonomous Wildfire Response track of the $11 million XPRIZE Wildfire competition.

XPRIZE announced the winners last Wednesday at the XPRIZE Wildfire Awardee Ceremony at the New York City Fire Museum. Anduril Industries took first place and Dryad Networks second. According to the judges, AURA demonstrated autonomous and persistent detection, clearing the critical 10-minute detection gate.

A Brutal Test in the Alaskan Wilderness

The bar was set high. In June 2026, finalists tested their systems in the Alaskan wilderness, where each team had to autonomously detect and fully suppress a high-risk fire within 10 minutes of ignition, across 1,000 km² of rugged terrain, while leaving nearby decoy fires untouched. Only three Track B finalists walked away with awards.

Four Countries, One Mission

AURA Foresight brings together four organizations across three continents:

  • AURA (Autonomous Ubiquitous Wildfire Response with Aware Robots), University of Bristol — United Kingdom

  • Fire Foresight, Taz Drone Solutions — Australia

  • Little Place Labs — United States

  • RoboticsCats — Hong Kong

The team first came together in late 2022. What followed, in the team's words, was "an incredible four-year journey" of learning, testing, iterating, and improving. Along the way, the Fire Foresight team visited Santa Cruz Works to meet local industry leaders, connecting with experts from AirSpace Integration, DART, and Joby Aviation, the same advanced air mobility ecosystem SCW has spent years cultivating. Santa Cruz Works

Santa Cruz Roots

RoboticsCats is no stranger to the SCW community. The company took part in Santa Cruz Accelerates' 4th cohort, and its team credits the program as an important part of its early development. RoboticsCats builds AI-powered tools that help governments, businesses, and individuals mitigate wildfire through early detection. Santa Cruz Works

In sharing the news with the Santa Cruz Works community, the team expressed gratitude "for the experience and support we received through the Santa Cruz Accelerates, which was an important part of RoboticsCats' early development journey."

The Start of a New Chapter

The team sees the award as a milestone, not a finish line. They plan to build on the collaboration and pursue opportunities to advance autonomous wildfire response in the United States and other wildfire-prone regions.

The timing lines up. XPRIZE Wildfire is now entering an Impact Phase aimed at turning promising technologies from both tracks into durable, deployable solutions through field trials, technology evaluation, and knowledge sharing, with PG&E as the lead sponsor.

For a region that knows wildfire risk firsthand, it is good to see a Santa Cruz Accelerates alum helping shape how the world detects and fights fire. Congratulations to RoboticsCats and the entire AURA Foresight team.

Read the full announcement at XPRIZE Wildfire Awardees.

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