🦾 HardTech Reads: The AI & Robotics Revolution vol.48
Welcome to the exploration of the world where founders embark on bold quests and solve non-obvious problems🤘
🚀 HARDTECH NEWS: Robotics & AI Innovations
What’s in this week?
🤖 UBTECH scales up with $1B, 🤖 Spacer Robotics’ Gen 2 Andromeda for space, 🏭 GSK’s $30B US R&D investment, 🤖 Tesla’s Optimus hand struggles, 🏙️ Toyota’s $10B Woven City, 🏭 Standard Bots’ Long Island factory, 💡 Global Lighthouse Network grows, 🏸 AI robot dog plays badminton, 🚗 Flying cars in SF, 🤖 Tesla Optimus AI lead joins Meta, 🏭 Gilead’s new US manufacturing hub, 🌉 China’s land-based ‘Suez Canal’, 🤖 Rethink Robotics shuts down again, ⚒️100 steps manual to build Humanoid Robot, 👩🏻🏭Free Robotics Careers Workshop, HardTech Jobs!
🤖 UBTECH Robotics is getting serious and scaling!
UBTECH Robotics has just secured up to $1B in financing from Infini Capital to scale up humanoid robot production. The deal includes plans for a new “superfactory,” an R&D center, and a regional headquarters in the Middle East. UBTECH is best known for its Walker S robots, which are already being tested in factories with companies like BYD, Geely, FAW-Volkswagen, and Foxconn. Earlier this year, the company landed the largest single order for humanoid robots to date: a $12.6M contract with Miyi Automotive. 💰 Infini Capital is taking a 5% stake in UBTECH, showing confidence in the company’s long-term potential. For UBTECH, the financing gives it the resources to expand faster, bring costs down, and compete with other players.
🤖 New humanoid- for space this time around! Meet Spacer Robotics Gen 2 Andromeda
Spacer Robotics has unveiled its Gen 2 Andromeda humanoid robot, designed for space applications. The robot is built to operate in extreme environments and perform tasks that are too dangerous or difficult for humans.
🏭 Next-generation biopharma factories and laboratories in the United States
As part of growing trade deals, Britain’s GSK (NYSE:GSK) will invest at least $30 billion in R&D in the U.S., including plans to advance AI-based manufacturing.
🤖 Tesla’s Robot Hand Crisis
Musk admits Tesla “struggling” with Optimus robot hands, which represent “majority of engineering difficulty.” Still claiming $20–25K manufacturing cost eventually. Goal of 5,000 robots in 2025 looking impossible. Meanwhile, proposing $1 trillion pay package requiring $8.5T market cap.
🏙️ Toyota is building a $10 billion smart city at the base of Mount Fuji
In a groundbreaking initiative, Toyota has unveiled Woven City, a $10 billion “living laboratory” nestled at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan. This ambitious project aims to serve as a real-world testing ground for advanced technologies, including robotics, artificial intelligence, and autonomous zero-emission vehicles. Who is moving with me? ;)
🏭 Standard Bots Opens Robot Arm Factory in Long Island
The company expanded its Glen Cove factory to 16,000 square feet, doubling its previous size, and unveiled a new 30kg payload robot with 2-meter reach alongside its existing six-axis RO1 model. Standard Bots’ robots run on proprietary AI powered by Nvidia’s Isaac platform, which enables users to teach robots tasks through demonstration rather than traditional programming. The company has raised over $63M in funding and emphasizes US-based manufacturing as the robotics industry sees significant growth, with global robot installations in manufacturing rising 31% in 2022.
💡 Illuminating the future of manufacturing
The Global Lighthouse Network has grown from 16 to more than 200 smart industrial sites using digital tech to boost productivity, resilience, sustainability and more.
🏸 AI-powered ‘robot dog’ plays badminton against humans
Scientists have trained an AI-powered robot dog to play badminton against humans, and it has shown impressive skills. The robot can track the shuttlecock, move into position, and hit it back over the net.
🚗 Flying cars are officially coming to San Francisco.
California startup Alef Aeronautics has been cleared to operate the world’s first flying car at Half Moon Bay and Hollister airports, both just south of SF. The $299,999 EV, called the Model A, can drive like a normal car, then vertically take off and fly up to 110 miles. With more than 3,000 pre-orders already in, the Bay Area will be the first place on Earth to see it in action.
🤖 News from Tesla Optimus
Ashish Kumar, Tesla’s AI lead for its Optimus humanoid robot, has jumped to Meta just weeks after Elon Musk declared the robot project would account for 80% of Tesla’s future value.
🏭 Gilead starts building manufacturing hub under $32 billion planned US investments
Gilead is building a new manufacturing hub in the U.S. as part of a $32 billion investment plan. Major U.S. drugmakers such as Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb have also announced big investments in U.S. manufacturing.
🌉 China to build land-based ‘Suez Canal’ to connect Europe and Asia, bypassing shipping routes
China is planning to build a massive land-based transportation corridor to connect Europe and Asia, creating a modern-day “Suez Canal” that bypasses traditional shipping routes. The project aims to boost trade and economic integration between the two continents.
🤖 Rethink Robotics shuts down — again
Rethink Robotics, once a pioneer in collaborative robots, has shut down for the second time. Founded in 2008 as Heartland Robotics by Rodney Brooks and Ann Whittaker, the company gained attention with its Baxter and Sawyer cobots but struggled with performance issues. After going bankrupt in 2018, it was acquired by Hahn Group and later became part of United Robotics Group (URG). Relaunched in 2024 with new cobots and mobile robots, Rethink again faltered as products weren’t market-ready and investors pulled back funding. URG filed for bankruptcy in 2025, ending Rethink’s U.S. operations. The future of its IP and latest models remains unclear, though analysts expect the cobot sector to rebound.
🔬 STARTUPS TO KNOW: Game-Changers in HardTech & AI
•Figure, a San Jose, Calif.-based autonomous robot developer, raised $1 billion in Series C funding. Parkway Venture Capital led the round and was joined by Brookfield Asset Management, NVIDIA, Macquarie Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures, Tamarack Global, LG Technology Ventures, Salesforce, T-Mobile Ventures, and Qualcomm Ventures.
•Divergent raised a $290M Series E led by Rochefort Management, LLC. Divergent is in a tremendous position to strengthen America’s industrial base with our next-generation software-defined manufacturing platform.
•Messium raises $3.9M Seed by UKI2S, Expansion Aerospace for hyperspectal satellites to monitor agriculture.
•FeX Energy raises $3.5M Seed by Fathom, Amplify, Antares for iron reactors to power heavy industries.
•Rendezvous raises $3M Pre Seed by Aurelia, 8090, ATX Venture for modular swarm hardware assembly in orbit.
•LocusX raises $2.2M Seed by Diagram, Triptyq to debug game development with AI.
•MicroFactory raises $1.5M Pre Seed by Naval Ravikant for precision task robots.
•ReOrbit raises $53M Series A by Springvest, Varma, Elo for earth observation & satcoms in retail & defense.
•Dyna Robotics, a Redwood City, Calif.-based developer of general-purpose robots, raised $120 million in Series A funding. Robostrategy, CRV, and First Round Capital led the round and was joined by Salesforce Ventures, NVentures, and others.
•Quantinuum, a quantum computing group, raised $600m at a $10b valuation. Backers include Honeywell, Quanta Computer, NVentures, JPMorgan, Mitsui, and Amgen.
•Luminary Cloud, a San Mateo, Calif.-based physics AI platform for engineering teams, raised $72 million in funding. N47 led the round and was joined by Sutter Hill Ventures and NVentures.
•Fermi America, an Amarillo, Texas-based developer of an AI private grid campus, raised $100 million in Series C funding. Macquarie Group led the round.
•Mojo Vision, a Cupertino, Calif.-based micro-LED platform, raised $75m in Series B funding. Vanedge Capital led, joined by Edge Venture Capital, NEA, Fusion Fund, Knollwood Capital, Dolby Family Ventures, Khosla Ventures, imec.xpand, Keymaker, Ohio Innovation Fund, and Hyperlink Ventures.
•Phasecraft, a Bristol, U.K.-based quantum algorithms company, raised $34 million in Series B funding. Playground Global, Plural, and Novo Nordisk led the round and was joined by LocalGlobe, AlbionVC, and Parkwalk Advisors.
•Orchard Robotics, a San Francisco-based developer of technology designed to automate farming processes, raised $22 million in Series A funding. Quiet Capital and Shine Capital led the round and were joined by General Catalyst, Contrary, Mythos, Valyrian, Ravelin, and others.
•IQM raises $320M Series B by Ten Eleven to scale quantum hardware.
•Shift5 raises $75M Series C by Hedosophia, Booz Allen, Squadra to scale operations for defense contracts.
•Flybotix raises $10M Series A by Greenering for drones inspecting industrial assets.
•Speedchain, an Atlanta-based spend management platform for construction, raised $11M in Series A funding from GTM Fund, Village Global, TTV Capital, K5 Global, Tandem, and Emigrant Bank. It also secured $100m in debt from Community Investment Management.
•Sapphire Technologies, a Cyprus, Calif.-based power generation startup, raised an $18M Series C from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries alongside existing investors Equinor Ventures, Cooper and Company, and Energy Capital Ventures.
•Standard Fleet, a fleet management platform for connected-vehicles, raised $13M in Series A funding led by Nova Threshold.
•Nuclearn, a Phoenix-based AI platform for nuclear professionals and critical infrastructure operators, raised $10.5M in Series A funding. Blue Bear Capital led and was joined by SJF Ventures, AZ-VC, and Nucleation Capital.
•Augment raised $85M Series A to Supercharge Augie, The AI Teammate for Logistics.
•Leo AI has built an AI ‘copilot’ for mechanical engineers. Flint Capital led the $9.7 million seed round, which included participation from an A16z scout, Tech Aviv, Two Lanterns VC, and Google VP Yossi Matias, among others.
📚FAVORITE RESOURCES
➡️Do you want to build your own humanoid? 100 steps manual is here!
➡️ “Life was computational from the start.”
Last week, as a member of The Long Now Foundation, I participated in an absolutely illuminating talk about origination of intelligence. Blaise Agüera y Arcas took us on a journey through What is Intelligence?, his groundbreaking new work connecting the evolutionary dots between life, computation, and symbiogenesis.
Starting from the premise that not only AGI but human beings might simply be sufficiently massive computationally-scaled predictors, Agüera y Arcas explored what that might mean for how we think about technology, empathy, cooperation, and consciousness.
👨🔧HARDTECH STARTUPS ARE HIRING
Looking for a 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐉𝐨𝐛? Check 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐉𝐨𝐛𝐬 𝐁𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝!⚒️🏭🧑🏭🤖
Figure, SpaceX, Cobot, ABB, Blue Origin, NASA, Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Rivian, Bright Machines, Archer , GITAI , Relativity Space are hiring!
Check it here 👇
FOR COMPANIES: Submit Your Job Posting here
FOR CANDIDATES:Search Through The List & Apply Directly
The coolest HardTech jobs this week:
🔥Distributed Systems Engineer at Moment
🔥Robotic Operations Technician at Figure
🔥Data Scientist (SF), $130K-$300K
🔥Intelligent Identity Engineer (India)
📢 ANNOUNCEMENTS:
ARM Institute Hosts Free Robotics Careers Workshop for Manufacturing Day
The ARM Institute will host a free workshop on October 28 from 6:30 PM to 7:45 PM US Eastern to help students and job seekers explore robotics careers in manufacturing. With the National Association of Manufacturers projecting a shortage of 3.8 million jobs in the coming years, robotics skills are increasingly in demand to both fill gaps and create higher-paying roles. The workshop will provide job search and resume tips, insights from hiring employers, and guidance on how to connect to robotics training and career opportunities through RoboticsCareer.org. Participants will also have the chance to hear from HR professionals, employers seeking robotics talent, and ARM Institute experts, making the event a practical step for anyone pursuing a career in robotics within manufacturing.
🎤EVENTS
➡️ 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 on 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐢𝐝𝐬’ 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞!?
Before the world’s first VR-controlled humanoid robot fight (Twitch Co-Founder Justin Kan 🥊 🤖 🤖 🥊 UFC Fighter Hyder Amil) takes over the main stage, we will have a proper programming 📚 about the future of AI, Robotics, and Venture Investing.
I’ll be chatting about my fav topic-> 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝗯𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻!
I’ll be honored to share the stage with Nikhil Choudhary from Nirman Ventures 🫡, Lesya Hendrix who just launched Spacer Robotics ☄️(check it out!!!) and Anto Patrex from CosmicBrain AI 🧠
If you’re wondering how robotics is moving from science fiction to real life — reshaping industries, daily life, and the future of work — we’ll cover it all.
✅ Be sure to check the rest of the day’s programming too: lots of brilliant minds will be sharing their insights!
🎟️ Ping me for more info and tickets!
➡️ In November, if you happen to be in Tokyo, please come and say hi! Ill be speaking all things VC, startups at Innovate Her conference.
🎤EVENTS
🔧 TBD — NOX METAL FACTORY OPENING PARTY (Detroit, MI)
🇺🇸 Oct 1 — Renaissance UnDemo Day (Detroit, MI)
🌱 Oct 13–15 — RECESS25 Clean Energy Summit (Detroit, MI)
🏗 Oct 6–10 — Intl. Conference on Advanced Manufacturing (Las Vegas, NV)
🤝 Oct 15–16 — RoboBusiness (Santa Clara, CA)
🦿 Oct 23 — WERC Texas Warehousing Forum (Grapevine, TX)
🇸🇬 Oct 27–29 — ROSCon (Singapore)
🌍 Oct 19–25 — IEEE IROS(Hangzhou, China)
🔧 Oct 29 — Hard Tech Summit (Ontario, Canada)
🤠 Nov 3–5 — Intl. Robot Safety Conference (Houston, TX)
🇯🇵 Dec 1–4 — Intl. Conference on Space Robotics (Sendai, Japan)
🇦🇪 Dec 8–12 — Deep Tech Week Dubai 2025
🦿 Dec 11–12 — Humanoid Summit (Silicon Valley, TBA)
🇬🇧 Mar 16–19, 2026 — Intl. Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (Edinburgh, Scotland)
🤝 Passionate about HardTech?
Have comments, want to share some thoughts or ask about sponsorships? Send me a note: https://bit.ly/3SXPifd
You can also find me on LinkedIn and Substack 🛠️
If you are interested in AI, Robotics & HardTech, check my previous posts:
❗️The VC Industry Loves Data. But Doesn’t Use It…
— Is it why it’s ‘dying’?
➡️19 Robotic Hands Startups to Watch
➡️ The world doesn’t fix itself. These startups are trying /Top 100 HardTech Startups
➡️ Will we have a chatGPT moment for Robots?
➡️ The Coming Scarcity of Humanity
➡️ The Art and Science of Venture Capital Investing
➡️ Deep Thinkers & Builders in Tech, Science and Bio
➡️ Humanoids Don’t Exist in Isolation / It Takes an Ecosystem to Bring Them to Life!
➡️ Clone Alpha: The Next Leap in Humanoid Robotics
➡️ ‘Made in China’-Robotics Market Overview
➡️ The Science of Networks: From Theory to New Realities
#AI #Robotics #HardTechReads #Startups #DeepTech #Automation #Humanoids