GE Ventures has become the founding sponsor of a $20m Pittsburgh-based accelerator aimed at startups developing robotics technologies.

US-based venture capital fund Coal Hill Ventures launched an accelerator for robotics technology startups on Tuesday with funding from GE Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of conglomerate General Electric.

Coal Hill plans on raising $20m for the fund by the end of 2015, and to begin investing between $200,000 and $2m in startups from early 2016. The accelerator will welcome 20 to 30 companies developing technologies based on advanced robotics.

The accelerator was born out of discussions between Carnegie Mellon…