AMP ONE is designed to capture billions of dollars in value otherwise lost to landfills or incineration annually. Source: AMP Robotics

AMP Robotics Corp. today said it has  has raised $91 million in corporate equity in a Series D financing. The Louisville, Colo.-based company plans to use its latest funding to accelerate deployment of its AMP ONE systems, which uses artificial intelligence and robotics to sort municipal solid waste, or MSW.

“Recycling rates have stagnated in the United States, despite the positive benefits recycling offers local economies and the environment,” said Matanya Horowitz, founder of AMP. “This latest investment enables us to tackle larger projects and deliver real outcomes for waste companies and municipalities – by lowering sortation costs, capturing more material value, diverting organic waste, and extending landfill life – all while helping the industry optimize its strategic assets.”

Founded in 2014, AMP Robotics said its AI platform has identified 150 billion items and guided the sortation of more than 2.5 million tons of recyclables. The company said its technology can help modernize and change the economics of resource recovery. It has three full-scale facilities and more than 400 AI systems deployed across North America, Asia, and Europe.

From sortation to AMP ONE

AMP Robotics said its AI uses deep learning to continuously train itself by processing millions of material images into data. The software uses pattern recognition of colors, textures, shapes, sizes, and logos to identify recyclables and contaminants in real time, enabling new offtake chemistries and capabilities, it added.

The company noted that its first products were a series of sorting robots deployed with minimal retrofit into existing recycling facilities. AMP then developed facilities that it claimed involve almost no manual sorting, are reliable, and provide “pervasive data.”

“These facilities make the recovery of commodities safer and more cost-effective than ever and have grown to encompass MSW sorting, an offering out of reach to the industry prior to the advent of AMP’s technology,” it said. “AMP ONE provides a full-scale facility solution to sort various material streams and capture more of the billions of dollars in value otherwise lost to landfills or incinerated annually.”

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AMP Robotics marks recent deployments, new CEO

Recycling and Disposal Solutions demonstrated AMP ONE’s ability to cost-effectively sort MWS at its facility  in Portsmouth, Va. It has processed 150 tons per day of local waste with more than 90% uptime, said the company.

Last month, AMP Robotics entered into an agreement with Waste Connections Inc. to equip and operate one of Waste Connections’ single-stream recycling facilities in Colorado. 

“AMP provides meaningfully lower-cost, higher-performance systems to recover commodities and increase landfill diversion, and we’re uniquely positioned to reshape the waste and recycling landscape at a critical time,” said Tim Stuart, CEO of AMP. “We’re grateful to our longstanding and newest investors for their support in helping us chart a new path for sustainable materials management and resource efficiency.”

AMP last month augmented its leadership team with the appointment of Stuart, former chief operating officer for Republic Services Inc. Horowitz transitioned from CEO into the role of chief technology officer.

Congruent Ventures leads round

Congruent Ventures led AMP Robotics’ Series D round. Current and new investors participated, including Sequoia Capital, XN, Blue Earth Capital, Liberty Mutual Investments, California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS), Wellington Management, Range Ventures, and Tao Capital Partners.

“AMP’s AI sortation systems enable consumers to recycle both with and without curbside separation and communities to benefit from the recovery of recycled commodities while reducing dependence on landfills,” added Abe Yokell, co-founder and managing partner of Congruent Ventures. “AMP is an example of the real-world impacts of AI; solutions like AMP’s will divert billions of tons of recyclable material from landfills while reducing emissions.”

Congruent Ventures is a leading early-stage venture firm focused on partnering with entrepreneurs to build companies addressing climate and sustainability challenges. The firm has more than $1 billion in assets under management across early-stage climate tech funds and 59 companies in its portfolio.

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Teleo revealed this week it raised $16.2 million in Series A extension funds. The new funding will be used to scale customer deployments of semi- autonomous heavy equipment, continue expanding into new industries beyond construction, and enhance its AI capabilities.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Teleo announced new orders for 34 machines from 9 new customers across pulp and paper, logging, port logistics, munition clearing, and agriculture industries. The company aims to expand into airports, waste and recycling, logistics, warehousing, and more.

The Series A extension came in two parts. It closed a $9.2 million extension in April 2024 that was led by UP.Partners and included Trousdale Ventures and F-Prime Capital. The second, $7 million extension closed this week and was also led by UP.Partners. It included Triatomic Capital and returning investors. Teleo has raised $29.8 million to date since it was founded in 2019, including its Series A funding round in June 2022.

“Our strong conviction in Teleo’s solution comes from the incredible impact their technology for remote and autonomous operations of heavy machinery is having for some of the largest operators in the world. In addition to significant productivity gains, Teleo creates a positive effect on the workforce, where skilled labor shortages are endemic to the industry,” said Adam Grosser, Chairman and Managing Partner at UP.Partners. “Teleo’s retrofit technology helps to make equipment operator jobs more accessible and safer, in addition to improving customer profitability by reviving machines that were otherwise sitting idle.”

Teleo delivers supervised autonomy

Teleo’s autonomy retrofit kit transforms various types of heavy equipment, including bulldozers, wheel loaders, and excavators, into semi-autonomous and remotely-operated robots. This approach, known as supervised autonomy, allows one operator to oversee several machines working together. The operator can remotely manage complex tasks from a central command center, whether situated nearby or thousands of miles away.

Many industries rely on heavy machinery for repetitive and predictable tasks. Teleo’s technology offers a solution, especially during significant labor shortages. For instance, the Associated General Contractors of America reports that 91% of construction firms struggle to find workers, leading to increased costs and project delays.

“There is a strong value proposition of our technology across many industries that leverage heavy machinery and our focus is to fulfill and scale our solid pipeline of orders,” said Vinay Shet, co-founder and CEO, Teleo. “There’s a wider, untapped range of industries where Teleo Supervised Autonomy can provide instant value. We will use these funds to further deploy and scale our technology so we can continue to address historic labor shortages and deliver a positive impact.”

I had the opportunity to visit the Teleo headquarters in Palo Alto earlier in 2024 and witness a live demo of the driver station from Shet. He was remotely operating an articulated loader located 20 miles away, across the bay in Fremont CA. We successfully maneuvered the vehicle around the site and operated the lift bucket to transfer dirt.

Remote operators have a first-person view from the cab of the remote equipment and control the operations with foot pedals and dual joysticks. | Credit: Teleo

The Teleo operator station includes multiple large screens with multiple camera feeds, and vehicle stats, along with dual stick controllers and foot pedals. The perception engine onboard the remote vehicle monitors a 360-degree envelope around the vehicle and alerts the teleoperator to the presence of any obstacles (including humans) that might be in the proximity of the vehicle.

Teleo equips the remote vehicle with a control box and a suite of cameras and sensors that provide the operator with a 360 view around the vehicle. | Credit: Teleo

Humans can manually operate the features of the remote equipment, including loading/unloading and digging. However, for long drives around the remote site, the operator can switch the vehicle to autonomous mode to haul or reposition it. Meanwhile, the teleoperator stays at the station, monitoring the vehicle’s progress.

The operator can teleport into another vehicle on the site and monitor or control its missions. This allows a single operator to manage a fleet of autonomous vehicles. Operators can perform this function from a trailer at the work site, or remotely, from a secure cloud connection.

Teleo’s global dealer partner network, which was launched in 2023, includes dealer partners in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, North Africa, and the Middle East. The company also demonstrated the world’s longest supervised autonomous operation in history, when operators in Dallas controlled machines at a worksite in Finland, over 5,000 miles away.

Competitive market

There are a growing number of competitors to Teleo in the construction market, including Built Robotics, Safe AI, and the OEM equipment manufacturers. The pace of innovation is accelerating, the technology is maturing and the networking infrastructure to support access to the remote vehicles and operators is growing. Teleo is now positioned to accelerate its growth and market share.

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Red Cat’s Black Widow drone features forward-looking obstacle-avoidance capabilities and an integrated FLIR Prism AI software stack. | Source: Red Cat

Red Cat Holdings Inc. this week announced that it won the U.S. Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance, or SRR, program of record contract. The company replaced Skydio on this contract. The U.S. Army set an initial acquisition target of 5,880 systems over a five-year period. 

Skydio first earned this contract in 2021. At the time, it was valued at $99.8 million with a base year value of $20.2 million. While the company did compete for the contract this time around with its X10D drone, the Army said Red Cat’s system was more aligned with its requirements. 

“This is a powerful moment in time, coming after five years of blood, sweat, and tears put into SRR by our incredible team” stated George Matus, chief technology officer of Red Cat and founder of Teal, a subsidiary of Red Cat. “The long-awaited production selection marks a new era for our company and the future of American drones.”

“We were selected based on soldier feedback, technical performance, volume manufacturability, and system cost,” he said. “Our top priority now is to start ramping production of the next-generation system, recently announced as the Black Widow and WEB, and give warfighters the tools they need to be successful on the modern battlefield.”

Red Cat expects increased defense demand

San Juan, Puerto Rico-based Red Cat provides integrated robotic hardware and software for military, government, and commercial operations. Through its Teal Drones and FlightWave Aerospace Systems subsidiaries, the company offers drones including:

• Black Widow, its flagship product, a small unmanned aerial system (sUAS) with advanced capabilities
• TRICHON fixed-wing vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle for extended endurance and range
• FANG, a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)-compliant, first-person view (FPV) drone optimized for military operations with precision-strike capabilities

Red Cat said it is preparing to meet increased demand across the rest of the U.S. Department of Defense, the federal government, and allied countries. The company’s Black Widow won the contract. Part of the company’s ARACHNID family of systems, the drones are designed for electronic warfare operations. 

Black Widow has a modular architecture, enabling swift adaptation to requirements for missions such as short-range reconnaissance, said Red Cat. It can also handle secondary payloads.

The company said its system is purpose-built for the warfighter, manufactured in the U.S., and intended to increase survivability and warfighter safety.

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Army gives new ARACHNID line a lift

The Army made the production selection after a test and evaluation process of Teal’s next-generation sUAS. The Army Project Management Office for Uncrewed Aircraft Systems, Army Maneuver Battle Lab, Army Test and Evaluation Command, and Army Operational Test Center evaluated the systems.

Red Cat said the SRR contract selection builds on momentum from its September acquisition of FlightWave, last month’s announcement of the ARACHNID line, and the creation of the Red Cat Futures Initiative. This week, Red Cat also said it is working with Palladyne AI Corp. to integrate Palladyne’s software into Teal drones.

“Both the operational and tactical levels of war and maneuver of combat elements have evolved significantly over the past couple of years,” observed Paul Edward Funk II, a retired four-star Army general and Red Cat board member.

“Operational success today depends on the ability to seamlessly move data across the battlefield,” he said. “From a tactical perspective, small unmanned aerial systems that are rucksack-portable are playing a vital role in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, as well as surgical-strike capabilities based on the real-time needs of the warfighter.”

Skydio brings in $170M in funding

This latest news comes a little over a year after Skydio grounded its consumer drone operations to focus on its enterprise and public-sector customers.

According to the San Mateo, Calif.-based company, its drones are being used to put sensors in dangerous and important places to perform inspections, find missing children, and keep the military safe. They also make core industries, like public safety, transportation, energy, construction, and defense, safer and more efficient, it claimed.

It wasn’t all bad news for Skydio this week. TechCrunch reported that the company raised $170 million in a Series E extension round. This adds to the $230 million it raised last year. Skydio reached “unicorn” status, or $1 billion valuation, around its Series D in 2021.

Investors in the latest round include KDDI, a Japanese telecom operator, and Axon, which develops tasers and other technology for police forces. The extension also included previous investors such as Linse Capital, which currently owns more than 21% of Skydio. 

Skydio said its X10D drone provides timely information using advanced sensors. Its computing power can support team operations and inform the best decisions in real time, it asserted. Six custom-designed navigation lenses provide 360-degree visibility, eliminating blind spots.

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Pickle applies AI and computer vision to unload a range of items. Source: Pickle Robot

Robotic truck unloading fits the classic definition of dull, dirty, or dangerous jobs worth automating. Pickle Robot Co. yesterday announced that it has raised $50 million in Series B funding and that six customers placed orders during the third quarter for more than 30 robots to deploy in the first half of 2025. The new orders include pilot conversions, existing customer expansions, and new customer adoption.

“Pickle Robot customers are experiencing the value of ‘Physical AI’ applied to a common logistics process that challenges thousands of operations every day,” said AJ Meyer, founder and CEO of Pickle Robot. “The new funding and our strategic customer relationships enable Pickle to chart the future of supply chain robotics, rapidly expand our core product capabilities, and grow our business to deliver tremendous customer value now and in the future.”

Founded in 2018, Pickle Robot said its robots are designed to autonomously unload trucks, trailers, and import containers at human-scale or better performance. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company‘s goal is to relieve scarce workers and improve productivity and safety at distribution centers around the world.

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Robots and AI unload a growing range of items

Truck unloading is one of the most labor-intensive, physically demanding, and highest-turnover work areas in logistics, noted Pickle Robot.

The company claimed that its Physical AI combines sensors and a computer vision system with industrial robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. It uses generative AI foundation models trained on millions of data points from real logistics and warehouse operations.

The Pickle Unload Systems have been collaborating with staffers in production operations at distribution centers since the summer of 2023. To date, they have unloaded more than 10 million lb. (4.5 million kg.) of merchandise from import containers and domestic floor-loaded trailers.

The company said its customers include distributors of footwear, apparel, power tools, toys, kitchenware, packaging materials, small appliances, and other general merchandise. Its product roadmap is expanding to service parcel-type freight.

Pickle plans to add features, global marketing

The company said its Series B funding included participation from a strategic customer. Teradyne Robotics Ventures, Toyota Ventures, Ranpak, Third Kind Venture Capital, One Madison Group, Hyperplane, Catapult Ventures, and others also participated.

“Pickle is hitting its strides delivering innovation, development, commercial traction, and customer satisfaction,” said Omar Asali, CEO of Ranpak and a Pickle board member.

“The company is building groundbreaking technology while executing on essential recurring parts of a successful business like field service and manufacturing management,” he said. “It is a testament to the strong team at Pickle that world-class customers want to work with them and that investors are excited about their trajectory.”

The company said it plans to use its latest funding to accelerate the development of new feature sets. It also plans build out its commercial teams to unlock new markets and geographies worldwide.

It added that it is “on a mission to automate inbound and outbound processes at 1 million warehouse doors over the next 10 years.”

Pickle demonstrates lifting a 50-lb. box in a trailer. Source: Pickle Robot

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ANELLO offers an evaluation kit for its navigation and positioning system. Source: ANELLO Photonics

Self-driving vehicles, mobile robots, and drones need multiple sensors for safe and reliable operation, but the cost and bulk of those sensors have posed challenges for developers and manufacturers. ANELLO Photonics Inc. yesterday said it has closed its Series B funding round for its SiPhOG inertial navigation system, or INS.

“This investment not only validates our SiPhOG technology and products in the marketplace, but will [also] allow us to accelerate our manufacturing and product development as we continue to push the boundaries and leadership for navigation capabilities and performance to our customers who want solutions for GPS-denied environments,” stated Dr. Mario Paniccia, co-founder and CEO of ANELLO Photonics.

Founded in 2018, ANELLO has developed SiPhOG — Silicon Photonics Optical Gyroscope — based on integrated photonic system-on-chip (SoC) technology. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said it has more than 28 patents, with 44 pending. Its technologies also include a sensor-fusion engine using artificial intelligence.

“I spent 22 years at Intel and started this field of silicon photonics, which is the idea of building optical devices out of standard silicon processing, mostly focused on the data center,” recalled Paniccia. “Mike Horton, my co-founder, was a sensor gyro expert who started a company called Crossbow coming out of UC Berkeley.”

“Everyone doing autonomy was saying lidar and radar, but customers told Mike that if we could build an integrated photonic chip, they’d be very interested,” he told The Robot Report. “If you look at fiber gyros, they work great but are big, bulky, and expensive.”

“The stuff on our phones are MEMS [micro-electromechanical systems]-based today, which is not very accurate and is very sensitive to temperature, vibration, and EM interference,” Paniccia explained. “With the the same concept as a fiber gyro — the idea of light going around a coil, and you measure the phase based on rotation — we integrated all those components on a single chip, added a little laser, and put electronics around it, and you now get SiPhOG, which fits in the palm of your hand.”

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SiPhOG combines compactness and precision

SiPhOG brings high-precision into an integrated silicon photonics platform, claimed ANELLO. It is based on the interferometric fiber-optic gyroscope (FOG) but is designed for compactness, said Paniccia.

“It’s literally 2 by 5 mm,” he said. “On that chip, we have all the components — the splitters, the couplers, the phase modulators, and the delay lines. We measure about 50 nano-radians of signal, so a tiny, tiny signal, but we measure it very accurately.”

The system also has a non-ASIC, two-sided electronics board with an analog lock-in amplifier, a temperature controller, and an isolator, Paniccia said. It has none of the drawbacks of MEMS and uses 3.3 volts, he added.

Paniccia said the SiPhOG unit includes an optical gyro, triple-redundant MEMS, accelerometers, and magnetometers. It also has two GPS chips and dual antennas and is sealed to be waterproof.

The ANELLO IMU+ is designed for harsh environments including in construction, robotics, mining, trucking, and defense. Source: ANELLO

Navigation system ready for multiple markets

Autonomous systems can work with ANELLO’s technology and the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) for navigation, positioning, and motion tracking for a range of applications, said the company.

“We’re shipping to customers now in orchards, where the leaves come in, and the water in them essentially acts like a tunnel, absorbing GPS,” Paniccia said. “Our algorithm says, ‘I’m losing GPS, so weigh the navigation algorithm more to the optical gyro.’ You want the robot to stay within a tenth of a meter across a distance of half a mile. Long-distance, we’re looking at 100 km of driving without GPS with less than 100-m lateral error.”

In addition, SiPhOG is built for scalability and cost-effectiveness.

“VC friends tell me that automakers are putting six lidar systems on a car, and each one is $10,000 each. It’s never going to get to mass market,” Paniccia said. “We have an optical technology for land, air, and sea. And whether that land vehicle is for agriculture or construction, or in the longer term, trucking or autonomous cars, we can do it.”

“You can literally tape SiPhOG to a dashboard and plug it into the cigarette lighter,” he said. “We have self-alignment correction, and within 15 minutes, you can have GPS-denied navigation capability. We’re also shipping this system for indoor robots like in construction.”

“If I put three SiPhOGs in a cube, I can have the same performance but at one-fifth the size and weight and a quarter of the power for precision in three dimensions,” said Paniccia. “That’s exciting for drones and maritime.”

Investors to accelerate ANELLO 

Lockheed Martin, Catapult Ventures, and One Madison Group co-led ANELLO’s unspecified Series B round. New Legacy, Build Collective, Trousdale Ventures, In-Q-Tel (IQT), K2 Access Fund, Purdue Strategic Ventures, Santuri Ventures, Handshake Ventures, Irongate Capital, and Mana Ventures also participated. 

“We’re committed to fostering the art of the possible with investments in cutting edge technologies, including advancements in inertial navigation that have the potential to enhance autonomous operations in GPS-denied environments,” said Chris Moran, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Ventures. “Our continued investment in ANELLO reflects our mission to accelerate technologies that can ultimately benefit national security.”

ANELLO said it plans to use its latest funding to continue developing and deploying its technology. The company has worked with the U.S. Department of Defense to optimize its algorithms against jamming or spoofing.

“Every week, there’s an article about a commercial flight or defense-related mission getting GPS jammed, like thousands of flights to and from Europe affected by suspected Russian jamming,” noted Tony Fadell, founder of Nest and a principal at investor Build Collective. “GPS has become a single point of failure because it’s too easily compromised with various jamming and spoofing techniques.”

“ANELLO’s proven and commercially available optical gyroscope is the only navigational tool that can take over, [offering] precision over long periods of time, the size of a golf ball, low-power, low-cost, that’s immune to shock and vibration,” he added. “ANELLO will save lives in the air, on the road, and over water.”

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ZAP Surgical developed ZAP-X for the streamlined treatment of brain tumors, lesions, and other conditions of the head and neck. | Source: ZAP Surgical Systems

ZAP Surgical Systems Inc. this week said it has successfully closed a $78 million Series E funding round. The developer of non-invasive, robotic brain-surgery tools said the new financing will advance the commercialization of its ZAP-X Gyroscopic Radiosurgery platform.

Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is a well-established procedure for the non-invasive treatment of many brain tumors including brain metastases, meningiomas, and other intracranial disorders such as trigeminal neuralgia. Considered an alternative to open surgery for these indications, SRS is an outpatient procedure delivered in one to five brief treatments, according to ZAP Surgical.

Compared to open surgery, however, the SRS procedure has proven to provide equivalent to superior outcomes, claimed the San Carlos, Calif.-based company. It requires no surgical incision, inflicts no pain, and typically requires little to no patient recovery period, it added.

“We founded ZAP Surgical to address a clear need: enabling more patients to access state-of-the-art radiosurgery without the prohibitive costs and infrastructure requirements that limit so many providers,” stated John R. Adler, M.D., professor emeritus of neurosurgery at Stanford University, as well as founder and CEO of ZAP Surgical Systems.

ZAP-X promises to expand care

Each year, more than 5 million patients globally could benefit from stereotactic radiosurgery, estimated ZAP Surgical Systems. However, because of the cost and complexity of legacy technologies, only about 200,000 patients receive optimal SRS care, it said.

With availability concentrated primarily among only the largest urban academic hospitals, world-class radiosurgery has remained out of reach for an estimated 96% of patients who might benefit, said the company.

ZAP Surgical has developed the ZAP-X platform, a dedicated, non-invasive cranial radiosurgery system that incorporates advanced gyroscopic technology. Its movement enables radiosurgical beams to be directed from thousands of potential angles for precise tumor targeting.

The company said its approach prioritizes the protection of healthy brain tissue and aims to preserve patient cognitive function. In addition, it said the vault-free and cobalt-free design of ZAP-X eliminates the need for costly shielded treatment rooms and removes the traditional requirement to manage, secure, and replace radioactive isotopes for radiation beam production.

Baheal Medical partners with ZAP Surgical

Qingdao Baheal Medical Inc. led ZAP Surgical’s Series E round, which also included participation from other strategic investors. Baheal Medical is a leading healthcare company in China.

“This partnership with Baheal Medical perfectly aligns with our mission, providing ZAP-X with a powerful platform to reach millions of underserved patients globally,” said Adler.

“We are thrilled to partner with ZAP Surgical in expanding access to cutting-edge radiosurgery technology,” added Fu Gang, chairman and president of Baheal Medical. “ZAP-X’s innovative approach aligns with our commitment to delivering advanced healthcare solutions that address pressing clinical needs. Together, we are poised to promote how brain tumors and other intracranial diseases are treated, providing more precise alternatives that greatly enhance patients’ quality of life.”

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CaseFlow orchestrates case-picking robots and workers, noted new CEO Karl Iagnemma. Source: Vecna robotics

Vecna Robotics today announced that it has closed $14.5 million in additional funding from existing investors and brought on Karl Iagnemma as CEO. The Waltham, Mass.-based company provides mobile robots for materials handling.

Iagnemma has been a robotics researcher and an entrepreneur. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he authored publications on robotics and artificial intelligence that have been cited more than 20,000 times.

“I got my Ph.D. in 2001 and led the Robotic Mobility Group at MIT from 2001 to 2013, where I did fundamental research into wheeled mobile robots, the foundational technology for autonomous mobile robots [AMRs] and robotaxis,” Iagnemma told The Robot Report.

At MIT, Iagnemma met Daniel Theobald, a fellow alumnus and founder and chairman of Vecna Robotics, while working on a DARPA project. In 2020, Iagnemma made an angel investment in the company.

“I was convinced that Vecna had the world’s best technology to address key workflows in this space,” he said. “It’s a $275 billion opportunity, with 2.5 billion sq. ft. of warehouse space.”

From autonomous vehicles to mobile robots

In 2013, Iagnemma co-founded and served as CEO of autonomous vehicle (AV) developer nuTonomy, which conducted public robotaxi pilots in Singapore.

“nuTonomy launched the first fully Level 4 self-driving vehicles in urban environments,” he recalled. “We raised about $20 million but saw that we needed billions to proceed.”

Tier 1 automotive supplier Aptiv acquired nuTonomy in 2017 for $405 million.

“We then saw that we needed an even bigger partner,” Iagnemma said. “That’s what led us to Hyundai in 2019.”

He was founding CEO of Motional, a $4 billion joint venture between Aptiv and Hyundai Motor Group. In May 2024, Hyundai acquired shares of Motional from Aptiv for $448 million.

“Automation in logistics today is similar to the current state of robotaxis, in that there is a massive market opportunity but little market penetration,” stated Iagnemma.

“I join Vecna Robotics at an inflection point in the material handling market, where operators are poised to adopt automation at scale,” he added. “Vecna is uniquely positioned to shape the market with state-of-art technology and products that are easy to purchase, deploy, and operate reliably across many different workflows.”

What’s the biggest difference between AVs and AMRs?

“With autonomous vehicles, you have to watch out for drunk jaywalkers, the weather, and baby strollers,” replied Iagnemma. “AMRs are ready to be deployed at scale today.”

“One of the first things I did when I joined Vecna is I went to a 1.2 million sq. ft. customer site,” he noted. “There were remarkably few people, and the robots were operating very reliably. It was a more constrained environment [than for AVs], but the robots are still complex. They’re not just technology but products that must operate continuously.”

Iagnemma joins as CaseFlow is released

Vecna Robotics makes autonomous forklifts, tuggers, pallet trucks, and pallet jacks. It also offers the Pivotal software and a round-the-clock Command Center to help manufacturers, warehouses, and distribution operators automate critical tasks, maximize throughput, and quickly scale.

“Pivotal is a great example of the large-scale thinking that is embodied in Vecna,” said Iagnemma. “Some competitors are building widgets for specific workflow products, but Vecna is developing an ecosystem. It’s not just a product for one use case but an AI system that optimizes the performance of every asset, including automation and workers.”

Last month, Vecna introduced the CaseFlow system for optimized human-robot case picking. It offers CaseFlow through a robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) model.

“I was excited to join with the release of CaseFlow,” Iagnemma said. “Case picking is one of the highest-value workflows, and this is the only truly flexible way to do it. We’ve seen customer sites with ROI [return on investment] in less than a year, with more than doubling of productivity. It’s not just a simulation.”

Vecna prioritizes strategic partnerships, enhanced products

In June, Vecna raised more than $100 million in a Series C round and named Michael Helmbrecht as chief operating officer. The company’s previous CEOs included Dan Patt and Craig Malloy.

Vecna said it plans to use its latest $14.5 million in funding to accelerate technology and product enhancements.

“My goal as CEO is to continue investing in product development and ‘deepen our moat’ in the automated forklift area,” said Iagnemma. “Another is to achieve scale through new products and strategic partnerships, not at the facility scale but at the enterprise scale.”

“Karl Iagnemma combines exceptional robotics expertise with hands-on leadership, making him the perfect fit to drive innovation and propel Vecna Robotics into its next phase of growth,” said Nick Solaro, general partner at Drive Capital. “We are confident that his extensive network will be instrumental in forging key strategic partnerships, securing the company’s long-term leadership in the market.”

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The Digit humanoid transports totes at a Spanx facility run by GXO Logistics in Georgia. | Credit: Agility Robotics

Details are scarce at the moment, but Agility Robotics has a new strategic partnership. Schaeffler AG, a global leader in motion technology, is making a minority investment into Agility and buying Digit humanoid robots for use across its global plant network.

The companies did not disclose the size of the investment, the number of humanoids being purchased, or what they will be used for. The Robot Report reached out to Agility Robotics and Schaeffler for more details, but both companies declined to comment.

“In disruptive times, implementing innovative manufacturing solutions is crucial to be successful,” said Andreas Schick, chief operating officer of Schaeffler. “Here, humanoids play an important role. We, at Schaeffler, will integrate this technology into our operations and see the potential to deploy a significant number of humanoids in our global network of 100 plants by 2030. We look forward to the collaboration with Agility Robotics which will accelerate our activities in this field.”

Agility Robotics won the inaugural RBR50 Robot of the Year Award from The Robot Report earlier in 2024. It was recognized for showcasing Digit’s ability to perform real-world work in pilots with Amazon and GXO Logistics.

While the pilot with Amazon has been relatively quiet, GXO officially deployed a “small fleet” of Digit humanoids at a Spanx facility in Georgia. The Digit humanoids pick up totes from 6 River Systems‘ Chuck autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and place the totes onto conveyors.

Agility claimed that it was the first company to commercially deploy humanoids. It also asserted that the GXO deal was the first robots-as-a-service (RaaS) implementation of such robots.

Humanoid development marches on

Many other companies are also developing humanoids for commercial use, including Apptronik, Boston Dynamics, Figure, and Sanctuary AI, to name a few. None of them, however, appear to have deployed their humanoids with customers beyond small trials.

“We are excited to welcome Schaeffler as a customer and investor, and look forward to delivering value in their operations with Digit,” said Peggy Johnson, who took over as Agility Robotics’ CEO in March 2024. “While our technology is helping companies like Schaeffler transform their manufacturing, logistics, and warehousing businesses, scaling the use of humanoid robots will require them to work cooperatively with humans and outside of the safety cages they are in today.”

“I am confident that in the next 24 months, Agility will be the first company to deliver a safe humanoid robot that will be able to work alongside people,” she stated.

There currently are no safety standards for humanoids. However, various efforts are under way to explore a path forward for relevant standards. The IEEE Humanoids Study Group just released a survey to better understand how human-robot interaction might affect the development of standards for humanoids.

Late last month, Boston Dynamics released an impressive video of its new electric Atlas humanoid. The video shows the robot handling large automotive parts autonomously. The company said Atlas uses machine learning to execute its tasks and 3D vision to perceive the world around it.

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Brightpick’s Autopickers automate both mobile manipulation and each picking tasks. | Source: Brightpick

Brightpick today announced that it has raised an additional $12 million in a mix of equity and debt funding. The company said it will primarily use the new funding to support the deployment of robots and artificial intelligence in the U.S., which is expected to generate 50% of its revenue in 2024.

“Since launching Brightpick Autopicker early last year, we’ve experienced tremendous interest from new customers,” said Jan Zizka, co-founder and CEO. “Our unique technology offers greater labor and cost savings than any other solution, which resonates strongly with customers. Our focus has always been on scaling in the US, where we’re now seeing the most traction. These funds will primarily support additional customer installations in that market.”

Brightpick spun off in 2021 from Bratislava, Slovakia-based Photoneo, a developer of 3D robotic vision sensors and intelligence software. The company, which is headquartered near Cincinnati in Erlanger, Ky., is part of Photoneo Brightpick Group, which has more than 8,000 technology installations across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Autopicker applies AI to fulfillment

Brightpick offers AI robots for warehouses to automate every step of fulfillment, from order picking and consolidation to dispatch and stock replenishment. The company claimed that its award-winning mobile manipulator is the only one in the world that robotically picks and consolidates orders directly in the warehouse aisles, like a human with a cart.

The flagship Autopicker system, first announced in 2023, takes just weeks to deploy and enables companies to minimize the labor needed for order fulfillment, said Brightpick.

The company added that it now has more 200 employees and over 300 AI robots deployed across the U.S. and Europe. Its customers include leading companies such as Rohlik Group, Dr. Max, and The Feed.

Last year, Autopicker was the 2024 RBR50 Application of the Year winner. The system stood out for its ability to automate both mobile manipulation and each picking. 

Brightpick funding totals $47M

To date, Photoneo has invested more than $35 million in Brightpick, with this latest round bringing total funding to $47 million.

The round saw participation from new investor EBRD Venture Capital alongside existing investors Pavel Baudiš and Eduard Kučera (founders of Avast), Miroslav Trnka (founder of ESET), Maximilian Kolowrat-Krakowsky, and Juraj Duriš.

“We are excited to support Brightpick as they continue to revolutionize warehouse automation with their innovative technology,” said Bruno Lusic of EBRD Venture Capital. “Their ability to deliver unmatched efficiency and cost savings to customers positions them as a leader in the market, and we are confident that their rapid growth in the U.S. will further strengthen their leading position.”

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DeepRoute.ai announced a strategic Series C1 funding round raising $100 million, led by Chinese automotive manufacturer Great Wall Motor. The company said it plans to use the funding will enhance research and development in its DeepRoute IO “end-to-end” model.

It also plans to scale collaborations with global automakers, explore future robotaxi business, and support the recruitment of more AI-native talent.

“The strategic investment from the automaker is a significant recognition of our technology maturity and mass-production capabilities” stated Maxwell Zhou, CEO of DeepRoute.ai. “We are eager to leverage this momentum to expand our reach in global markets.”

“I firmly believe autonomous driving is the most promising pathway to achieving physical AI, and we will be a major player in the next AI era,” he added. “We look forward to cooperating with more partners on this journey.”

DeepRoute.ai applies tech to more vehicles

DeepRoute.ai has raised about $450 million to date, according to data reported this week by Crunchbase. It closed its Series B round of $300 million in September 2021.

The Shenzhen, China-based company claimed that it has made significant strides, with approximately 20,000 vehicles delivered since August. That momentum continues, as DeepRoute.ai plans to release over 10 new vehicle models in partnership with select OEM clients next year.

Furthermore, the next-generation DeepRoute, powered by a cutting-edge visual language action model, is set to debut next year.

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Complete OEM self-driving stack

Unlike traditional robotaxis, which rely on pre-mapped data and are restricted to specific areas, DeepRoute.ai asserted that its autonomous vehicles will be more scalable and more cost-effective to deploy thanks to its end-to-end technology. This will allow people in various countries to enjoy the convenience of the latest smart driving technology, the company said.

The DeepRoute-Driver portfolio includes software, hardware, and a cloud monitoring system. DeepRoute.ai’s sensor-fusion technology can accurately detect various objects over 200 meters away. The company claimed it can safe driving, even in inclement weather, at night, or in other scenarios. 

• DeepRoute-Tite is the computing layer and “brain” of the system.
• DeepRoute-Syntric fuses data from all of the various sensors around the vehicle, providing input for the compute layer. DeepRoute.ai can integrate new sensors depending on the needs of the vehicle OEM.
• DeepRoute-Vision is the vision camera for the system, and the company has developed this camera for the specific needs of vehicle guidance.
• Cloud monitoring system, using 5G connectivity, enables remote operators to monitor vehicle operations and with human-in-the-loop interactions, rescue the vehicle when required.

The DeepRoute-Driver system is now available for $1,000 to $2,000 per vehicle, based on OEM quantities. The company has mentioned OEM clients that include Lincoln, Geely, Ford, and Dongfeng.

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The Phoenix Perception Radar enriches algorithms for advanced capabilities including free space mapping, object tracking, and SLAM. | Source: Arbe Robotics

Arbe Robotics Ltd. this week closed its initial public offering of 8,250,000 ordinary shares or pre-funded warrants in lieu thereof. The developer of perception radar systems said it expects to bring in around $15 million in gross proceeds from the IPO.

The company said it plans to use the net proceeds from this offering for working capital and general corporate purposes. Arbe said it aims to empower automakers, Tier 1 suppliers, autonomous ground vehicles (AGVs), commercial and industrial vehicles, and a wide array of safety applications with advanced sensing.

Founded in 2015, Arbe Robotics is based in Tel Aviv, Israel, and has offices in China, Germany, and the U.S.

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Arbe Robotics to move from ADAS to AVs

Arbe Robotics said it is starting with sensors for advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS), paving the way to full autonomous vehicles (AVs) later. The company claimed that its radar technology is 100 times more detailed than other radars on the market and that it is a critical sensor for SAE Level 2 and higher autonomy.

In September, Arbe said Tier 1 supplier Sensrad is providing 4D imaging radars using Arbe’s chipset to Tianyi Transportation Technology. It also announced that Tier 1 HiRain Technologies is using its chipset to develop an ADAS for another Chinese automaker.

HiRain’s LRR610 4D Imaging radar uses Arbe’s chipset. Source: Arbe Robotics

More about the IPO

The ordinary shares were accompanied by Tranche A warrants to purchase up to 8.2 million ordinary shares and Tranche B warrants to purchase up to 8.2 million ordinary shares at a combined public offering price of $1.82 per share (or per pre-funded warrant in lieu thereof) and the accompanying Tranche A and Tranche B warrants.

The Tranche A warrants had an exercise price of $2.35 per share, were immediately exercisable upon issuance, and expired on Nov. 4. Meanwhile, the Tranche B warrants had an exercise price of $1.82 per share. These warrants were immediately exercisable upon issuance.

Arbe Robotics said the Tranche B Warrants will expire on Nov. 4, 2027, or 20 trading days after the company achieves all of the following, whichever comes first:

• The company publicly announces that it has entered into a definitive supply agreement with a named European automotive original equipment manufacturer (OEM) that agrees to purchase a minimum of 500,000 radar chipsets over the term of the “Definitive Agreement Announcement.”
• The VWAP (as defined in the Tranche B Warrant) for each trading day in any period of 10 consecutive trading days within one calendar year of the date of the Definitive Agreement Announcement is equal to or exceeds $2.25, subject to certain adjustments.
• The trading volume of the ordinary shares (as reported by Bloomberg L.P.) on each trading day of the measurement period is at least 250,000 ordinary shares, subject to certain adjustments.
• The ordinary shares underlying the Tranche B warrants and any ordinary shares issuable upon the exercise of any pre-funded warrants issued upon the exercise of a Tranche B warrant (collectively, the “saleable shares”) are then covered by an effective registration statement and a current prospectus, which can be used for the sale or other disposition of the saleable shares. The company said it has no reason to believe that such registration statement and prospectus will not continue to be available for the saleable shares for the next 30 trading days (collectively, the “triggering event”).

This deal was led by institutional investors including AWM Investment Co., the investment adviser of the Special Situations Funds, which also participated in Arbe’s previous $23 million financing round. Canaccord Genuity acted as the sole bookrunner for the offering. Roth Capital Partners acted as the co-manager for the offering.

The aggregate gross proceeds to the Arbe from this offering were approximately $15 million, before deducting the underwriters’ discounts and commissions and other offering expenses payable by the company. It said the potential additional gross proceeds from the Tranche A and Tranche B warrants, if fully exercised on a cash basis, would be about $34.4 million.

The securities described above were offered pursuant to a registration statement on Form F-3 (File No. 333-269235), originally filed on Jan. 13, 2023, with the Securities and Exchange Commission and declared effective by the SEC on Feb. 24, 2023. Arbe filed the offering through prospectus and a prospectus supplement as part of its registration statement.

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The CLX robotic vision stack was inspired by human eyesight. Source: CynLr

CynLr, or Cybernetics Laboratory, today said it has raised $10 million in Series A funding. The company said it plans to use the investment to enhance its hardware reliability, improve its software performance and user experience, reduce costs for the customer, and expand its team.

Gokul NA and Nikhil Ramaswamy founded CynLr in 2019. The Bengaluru, India-based company specializes in “visual object sentience,” robotics, and cybernetics. It is developing technology to enable robots to manipulate objects of any shape, color, size, and form toward its “universal factory” or “factory-as-a-product” concept.

“This round of investments will help us focus on deeper R&D to build more complex applications and solutions for our customers, like Denso, where they need to manage their demand variability for different parts through a hot-swappable robot station,” stated Ramaswamy, founder and lead for go to market sales and investment at CynLr.

He also cited plant-level automation customers. “With General Motors … they require one standard robot platform to handle 22,000+ parts for assembly of the vehicles,” Ramaswamy said. 

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CynLr CLX-01 stack provides real-time, versatile vision

CynLr said its mission is to simplify automation and optimize manufacturing processes for universal factories. It was an exhibitor at the 2024 Robotics Summit & Expo in Boston.

The company claimed that it is building “the missing layers of fundamental technology” that will enable robots to intuitively recognize and manipulate even unknown objects just like a human baby might. CynLr said its “visual robot platform” enables robots to comprehend, grasp, and manipulate objects in complex and unpredicted environments. 

CyRo is a three-armed, modular, general-purpose dexterous robot. The company said it is its first product that can intuitively pick any object without training and can be quickly configured for complex manipulation tasks.

CyRo uses CynLr’s proprietary CLX-01 robotic vision stack, inspired by the human eye. Unlike traditional vision systems that rely only on pre-fed data for machine learning, CLX-01 uses real-time motion and convergence of its two lenses to dynamically see the depth of previously unknown objects.

CynLr added that its Event Imaging technology is agnostic to lighting variations, even for transparent and highly reflective objects. The company is partnering with multinational customers in the U.S. and EU to co-develop pilot applications.

“With the CyRo form factor receiving a resounding response from customers, technology-market fit has been firmly established,” said Gokul NA, co-founder and design, product, and brand leader at CynLr. “These customers are now eager to integrate CyRo into their production lines and experiment the transformational vision of a universal factory that can profitably produce custom-fit consumer goods, even at low volumes.”

The CyRo modular robot includes three robotic arms for complex manipulation tasks. Source: CynLr

Investors support universal factory concept

Pavestone, Grow X Ventures, and Athera Ventures (formerly Inventus India) led CynLr’s Series A round, which brings its total funding over two rounds to $15.2 million. Existing investors Speciale Invest, Infoedge (Redstart), and others also participated.

“CynLr’s concept of a universal factory will simplify and eliminate the minimum order quantity bottleneck for manufacturing,” said Sridhar Rampalli, managing partner at Pavestone Capital. “Furthermore, the idea of changing automation by simply downloading task recipe from an online platform makes factories … product-agnostic. [They] can produce entirely new products out of same factory at a click of a button; it’s a future that we look forward to.” 

Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner at Speciale Invest, said: “Automating using a state-of-the-art industrial robot today costs 3x the price of a robot in customization, along with 24+ months of design modifications. This is the significant technological bottleneck that the team at CynLr is solving, paving the way for long-overdue evolution in automation. We are excited to be a part of their journey in building the factories of the future.”

“Enabling an industrial robot to perform seemingly simple tasks — like inserting a screw without slipping, for example — is what CynLr has managed to crack,” said Samir Kumar, general partner at Athera Venture Partners. “This breakthrough will enable the manufacturing industry to dramatically increase efficiency and maximize the value of production setups.”

From left, Gokul NA and Nikhil Ramaswamy, co-founders of CynLr. Source: CynLr

CynLr to expand staff, production, and ‘object store’

CynLr plans to expand its 60-member core team into a 120-member global team. In addition to expanding its software research and development team, the company said it will hire business and operational leaders, plus marketing and sales teams across India, the U.S., and Switzerland.

The 13,000-sq.-ft. (1,207.7 sq. m) robotics lab in Bengaluru currently hosts a “Cybernetics H.I.V.E.” of 25 robots, which CynLr plans to expand to more than 50 systems by 2026.

“CynLr manages an extensive supply chain of 400+ parts sourced across 14 countries and will expand its manufacturing capacity to achieve the goal of deploying one robot system per day and reach the $22 million revenue milestone by 2027,” said Gokul NA.

During Swiss-Indian Innovation Week in September, the company opened its Design & Research Center at the Unlimitrust Campus in Prilly, Switzlerland. The center will work closely with CynLr’s research partners in EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne) Learning Algorithms and Systems (LASA) Laboratory and the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) in Neuchâtel.

“With the current momentum of breakthroughs in CyRo’s capabilities, we will be able to substantially reduce costs and drive adoption, bringing it closer to realizing the possibility of creating an ‘object store’ — a platform similar to today’s app stores, allowing customers to pick a recipe of applications and object models to have the Robot instantaneously perform a desired task,” explained Ramaswamy. “The company will simultaneously invest in infrastructure for support, solutions engineering, and sales to support this larger vision.”

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1X’s Eve robot.

Over the last several years, the investment environment has been tough for robotics startups. Capital deployment has fallen and companies have closed as the general downturn in tech investment that started in 2022 hit the resource-intensive robotics particularly hard. We have tracked that decline — and identified green shoots of recovery — in our annual State of Robotics reports.

This year, however, the picture has changed drastically. Betsy Mule and I were asked to speak about this changing environment at the RoboBusiness conference earlier this month, and as we near the year’s end we thought it would be worth sharing our findings with the wider community.

One of the key drivers of growth in the robotics sector has been the falling costs and higher performance of the technology’s building blocks — things like computing power, sensors, motors, and batteries. At the same time, accelerating advances in AI have been a tailwind for the industry.

These trends are showing in the investment data. After a sharp pullback in 2022 and 2023, the first eight months alone of 2024 have seen an increase in investment over all of last year, and we expect the full year investment activity to approach the all-time highs seen in 2021. At the same time, companies at different stages and across different industries are seeing sharply different investment dynamics play out.

Where is the money going?

We typically break robotics into three core segments; this year, however, given the increased industry interest and investment in humanoids, we have broken them out into a fourth category of their own. There was already close to $1B of investment in that category through August 2024, with companies like 1X, Apptronik, and Figure commanding huge funding rounds for general-purpose humanoid form factors. Investors include traditional VCs, corporate players, and AI darlings. Meanwhile, some big corporations (like Tesla and Boston Dynamics) are opting to build their own humanoids in-house, investing huge sums that may even dwarf the venture rounds that typically make headlines.

Meanwhile, after falling off considerably in 2022, autonomous vehicle investment once again accounts for the majority of robotics investment, driven by corporate mega rounds and coinciding with a number of legislative and business milestones. For example, Waymo reached 100,000 rides per week while companies like Aurora have been able to expand their operations to new states this year.

We’ve also seen a lot of interest in the software layer this year — particularly foundational models. Companies have attempted to build software for robotics for some time now, but often run into interoperability, scalability, and reliability challenges. Advances in AI are helping companies get closer than ever to overcoming those obstacles, but there are still challenges. Such models need to be inherently multimodal, understand relationships between physical objects and reason/react when the real world presents unexpected challenges. With improvements in multimodal large language models, everyone — startups, corporates, academics — is chasing the one foundational model to rule them all, though data scarcity and other constraints mean we are far from a “ChatGPT moment” for robotics.

After briefly taking over from AVs as the main destination for robotics investment in 2022 and 2023, Vertical Robotics continues to grow steadily. Over the last year, in particular, we’ve seen big interest in applications for the defense and agriculture industries — see Anduril ($1.5B) and Saronic ($175M) for the former, and Monarch ($133M) and Carbon ($56M) for the latter.

By stage

Though funding in the robotics sector has surged, the vast majority of capital has gone to large, mostly late-stage funding rounds. Earlier rounds are actually down year-on-year and back to 2020 levels. Those rounds are also a very small portion of the broader venture ecosystem. In robotics, earlier rounds account for 15 to 20 percent of total capital, while that figure is 20 to 30 percent for the broader venture ecosystem. The majority of the late-stage mega-round funding typically flows to AVs, defense and (this year at least) humanoids, the majority of early stage deals are focused on vertical robotics.

Exit outlook

A dearth of successful robotics exits has created a lot of uncertainty around potential returns in the category, and those companies that exited via SPAC or IPO prior to the slump have performed poorly in the public markets. Much of the robotics industry’s value remains locked up in private unicorns, and a lack of M&A or public offerings continue to be an industry headwind. And amid all the mega-rounds, we have also seen many well-funded robotics companies shut down or undergo restructuring over the last 18 months. High profile shutdowns include Zume ($446M raised), PrecisionHawk ($139M), Phantom Auto ($95M), and Ready Robotics ($44M).

Advice to founders

The long term tailwinds behind robotics are unmistakable. At the same time, attracting early-stage investor dollars to build a robotics business is getting increasingly challenging. Crossing the gauntlet of delivering high ROI, customer traction, and technical defensibility can be challenging in the early days of any venture-backed business, though it is particularly challenging in robotics where capital needs are higher and product iteration cycles are longer. Founders must be laser focused on hitting commercial and technical milestones at every step of the journey, while being realistic about the funding environment. Fortunately, for those who manage to cross the gauntlet, there are significant investor dollars looking for opportunities to help build generational businesses in robotics.

About the author

Sanjay Aggarwal is a venture partner at F-Prime Capital focused on frontier technology investment opportunities. Prior to joining F-Prime Capital, Sanjay was CEO of Unicel Technologies, an India-focused mobile messaging company. Sanjay scaled Unicel to become a leader in the Indian market and successfully exited the business to Karix Mobile.

Earlier in his career, Sanjay worked at Devonshire Investors (the private equity group of Fidelity Investments), McKinsey and Company in their US and India offices, and at Berkeley Process Control (acquired by Moog Inc), where he built machine automation systems. Sanjay holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management

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Physical Intelligence demonstrates the application of foundation models to training robots for tasks such as assembling boxes and folding laundry. Source: Physical Intelligence

Foundation models promise to give robots the ability to generalize actions from fewer examples than traditional artificial intelligence approaches. Physical Intelligence today announced that it has raised $400 million to continue its development of AI for a range of robots.

“What we’re doing is not just a brain for any particular robot,” Karol Hausman, co-founder and chief executive of Physical Intelligence, told The New York Times. “It’s a single generalist brain that can control any robot.”

The San Francisco-based company last week posted an explanation of its first generalist policy, which it claimed will make robots easier to program and use.

“To paraphrase Moravec’s paradox, winning a game of chess or discovering a new drug represent ‘easy’ problems for AI to solve, but folding a shirt or cleaning up a table requires solving some of the most difficult engineering problems ever conceived,” wrote Physical Intelligence.

“Our first step is π₀, a prototype model that combines large-scale multi-task and multi-robot data collection with a new network architecture to enable the most capable and dexterous generalist robot policy to date,” said the company. “While we believe this is only a small early step toward developing truly general-purpose robot models, we think it represents an exciting step that provides a glimpse of what is to come.”

It’s still early days for foundation models

Early demonstrations of such generalist robot policies include folding laundry, assembling boxes, and dynamically putting objects into containers. Sergey Levine, an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-founder of Physical Intelligence, shared these videos during his keynote address on building robotic foundation models at RoboBusiness last month.

Physical Intelligence acknowledged that foundation models that can control any robot to perform any task “are still in their infancy.” It said it is working on the data and partnerships to pretrain these models and enable new levels of dexterity and physical capability.

Physical Intelligence’s full research paper is available online.

Venture capital sees potential in AI plus robots

Physical Intelligence raised $70 million in seed financing earlier this year, and the company told The Robot Report that its valuation has risen to $2.4 billion. Jeff Bezos, executive chairman of Amazon, led the company’s latest funding round, along with Thrive Capital and Lux Capital.

Physical Intelligence thanked its investors on its website: “We are grateful for the support and partnership of Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, OpenAI, Sequoia Capital, and Thrive Capital.”

The company is currently hiring.

Other recent fundraising rounds supporting work to apply foundation models to robotics include $675 million for humanoid developer Figure AI, $300 million for Skild AI, $6.6 billion for OpenAI, $100 million for Collaborative Robotics, and Accenture’s plus more recent Canadian funding of Sanctuary AI.

More companies working on AI and robotics include Covariant AI, whose team was hired by Amazon; Intrinsic, which used NVIDIA models; and Vayu, which is developing delivery robots. Apptronik is also working with NVIDIA on a general-purpose foundation model for its Apollo humanoid.

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Fifty-four producers of robots and robotics enabling technologies raised funding in September 2024, pulling in a total of $3.7 billion. This is the highest monthly funding amount for 2024.

September’s investment exceeded June 2024’s total – the previous monthly leader – by over $1 billion and was more than 2.5 times the 12-month trailing average of $1.4 billion. The total investment targeted to robotics companies for January through September 2024 equals approximately $14.6 billion.

You can follow all of The Robot Report‘s robotics investments coverage here.

The largest single robotics investment in September was a $2.2B post-IPO debt round from Aptiv, a developer of autonomous driving technologies. Aptiv’s funding accounted for nearly 60% of the monthly total.

Other companies attracting significant investment in September 2024 include Quicktron Robotics ($100M for mobile robots), Mendaera ($73M for robotic interventional platform), Seegrid ($50M for mobile robots), Quantum Systems ($40M for drones) and Pyka ($40M for autonomous electric aircraft).

Continuing a trend, makers of humanoid robots continued to attract sizable investment. Example companies receiving sizable funding amounts in September 2024 include Agibot, Unitree Robotics, Booster Robotics (Accelerating Evolution), Xinghaitu, Yobotics, and navel robotics.

Companies located in the United States and China received the majority of the September 2024 investment rounds with 17 and 14, respectively. Aptiv’s $2.2B round was large enough to boost Ireland into first place among countries receiving September 2024 investments. Firms based in China attracted the second most funding (approximately $1.2B), while companies in the U.S. secured a total of $335 million.

All funding classes were represented among September 2024’s investments. For both the total number of investments and the overall amount of funding, most rounds and investment amounts fell into the ‘Other’ category, a blanket term for investment types that fall outside the typical stages of funding that businesses go through.

What defines robotics investments?
The answer to this question is central in any attempt to quantify them with some degree of rigor. To make investment analyses consistent, repeatable, and valuable, it is critical to wring out as much subjectivity as possible during the evaluation process. This begins with a definition of terms and a description of assumptions.

Investments
Robotics investments should come from venture capital firms, corporate investment groups, angel investors, and other sources. Friends-and-family investments, government/non-governmental agency grants, and crowdsourced funding are excluded.

Robotics Companies
Robotics companies must generate or expect to generate revenue from the production of robotics products (that sense, analyze, and act in the physical world), hardware or software subsystems and enabling technologies for robots, or services supporting robotics devices. For this analysis, autonomous vehicles (including technologies that support autonomous driving) and drones are considered robots, while 3D printers, CNC systems, and various types of “hard” automation are not.

Companies that are “robotic” in name only, or use the term “robot” to describe products and services that do not enable or support devices acting in the physical world, are excluded. For example, this includes “software robots” and robotic process automation. Many firms have multiple locations in different countries. Company locations given in the analysis are based on the publicly listed headquarters in legal documents, press releases, etc.

Verification
Funding information is collected from several public and private sources. These include press releases from corporations and investment groups, corporate briefings, market research firms, and association and industry publications. In addition, information comes from sessions at conferences and seminars, as well as during private interviews with industry representatives, investors, and others. Unverifiable investments are excluded and estimates are made where investment amounts are not provided or are unclear.

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