🦾 HardTech Reads: The AI & Robotics Revolution vol.37

Welcome to the exploration of the world where founders embark on bold quests and solve non-obvious problems🤘

Jun 30, 2025

Deep Tech Week was epic (again)!

➡️ Adam is still investing in Superheroes.
➡️ LPs are judging you with strict NPS scores — be nice to people, they will know ;)
➡️ Bilal is doing well with his new fund, getting there ;)
➡️ Nate on Vacation having the biggest FOMO of the year.
➡️ Loved David Hooper’s talk about Spectral Machines & the UAP Sensorium, anti-gravity research, and the future of interstellar civilization. Check Eldaeon.
➡️ YC’s were teaching what they know best, how to start a (deep tech) startup.
➡️ Alumni Ventures, Boost VC, Spacecadet, HubSpot for Startups, and SVB Hardware & Frontier Tech brought together founders doing The Physical AI.
➡️ Nikhil Choudhary put togehter great panel about Robotics & AI and we had quite opposite view on our fav humanoids. Very constructive discussion by Jonathan Healy, Investor @ Cathay Innovation, Freddy Dopfel, Principal @ LG Technology Ventures, Sarvagya Kochak, Co-founder of Tsavorite Scalable Intelligence, Wei Ding, is the Co-founder and CEO of UCR

➡️Voyager brought really cool founders who shared about Advanced Material Manufacturing. Check some of them:

Roman Teslyuk, Founder & CEO, Earth AI, Kira Wyckoff, Co-founder & CEO, Leeta, Jared O’Leary, Co-founder & CEO, SirenOpt, Nathan Ratledge, Co-founder & CEO, Alta, Brian Hardin, Co-founder & CEO, Aluminio, Ankit Somani, Co-founder & CEO, Conifer, Ian Brooke, Founder & CEO, Astro Mechanica, Nare Janvelyan, Investor,

If you needed a bit of rest in between, you could hang out in the Robot Cafe by OpenMind.

Ah, and in all this craze we closed really cool deal! Lots of hardware, but it’s going to be big! Stay tuned!

Coming back to the regular stuff👇

🚀 HARDTECH NEWS: Robotics & AI Innovations

🇨🇳 Mini drones, mega concerns
China revealed a mosquito-sized drone for covert military ops. Developed by the National Defense University of Science and Technology, the bug-bot is remote-controlled via smartphones and designed for silent reconnaissance. A reminder: the future of warfare is small, silent, and smart.

👉 Learn more

🧠 AI meets neurotech — without implants
Reid Hoffman just backed Sanmai Technologies, creators of a $500 wearable ultrasound helmet for anxiety and depression. Think: Neuralink, but without surgery. Using focused ultrasound and AI-guided targeting, this non-invasive tool is now in clinical trials. It may represent the “soft-tech” path to brain-computer interfaces.
👉 Learn more

🤖 Google’s robots no longer need the cloud
Google DeepMind’s new VLA model lets robots operate offline, learning tasks like shoelace-tying from as few as 50 demos. It’s on-device, tunable, and marks a leap in robotic autonomy — less data center, more DIY cognition.
👉 Learn more

🏗 SoftBank + TSMC = $1T AI hub in Arizona?
Dubbed Project Crystal Land, this mega project may establish Arizona as the next AI + robotics manufacturing nexus. Still in early talks, but another major move in the U.S. reindustrialization playbook.
👉 Learn more

🏃‍♂️ 21 humanoids ran a marathon in Beijing
Yes, humanoid robots ran 13 miles. From AlphaGo to AlphaRun? The symbolism is powerful: we’re seeing humanoids transition from labs into real-world chaos. The EV moment for robotics is arriving.
👉 Learn more

🧠 Silicon Valley CTOs join the U.S. Army Reserve
Palantir, Meta, and OpenAI execs are now reservists. They’ll assist on short-term defense projects like cybersecurity and AI infrastructure. A new fusion of commercial tech leadership and national service.
👉 Learn more

🌌 SpaceX + Axiom launch private crew to ISS
Axiom’s Ax-4 mission launched four civilians into orbit aboard a Falcon 9. Their goals: biotech, material science, and student outreach during a 14-day stay at the ISS.
👉 Learn more

🏢 Amazon’s AI data center: 30+ campuses, 2.2GW
Project Rainier in Indiana will be one of the largest AI-dedicated compute sites in history. It marks the supersizing of infrastructure behind the AI revolution.
👉 Learn more

🚀 Startups to Know: Game-Changers in HardTech & AI

Lux Aeterna raised $4M pre-seed (Space Capital) to build heat-shielded reusable satellites

AmCa raised $76.5M seed (Caffeinated, a16z, Lux, FF) to modernize U.S. mid-tier industrial suppliers

Biren Tech raised ~$207M (state-backed) for China’s GPU chip production, prepping for HK IPO

Nascent Materials raised $2.3M seed (SOSV) to cut battery costs for EVs & data centers

Helsing raised €600M Series D (Prima Materia, BDT, Lightspeed, Accel) for defense AI

Applied Intuition raised $600M Series F (BlackRock, Kleiner Perkins, QIA, Fidelity) at $15B valuation

Multiverse Computing raised $215M Series B (Bullhound, HP Tech Ventures) for quantum AI

Proxima Fusion raised €130M Series A (Cherry, Balderton, UVC) to advance stellarator tech

Pelico raised $40M Series B (General Catalyst, 83North) for supply chain orchestration

Senra Systems raised $25M Series A (CIV, Dylan Field, GC, Sequoia, FF) for aerospace wiring

Sunrise Robotics raised $8.5M seed (Plural, Seedcamp) for industrial AI robotics (Slovenia 🇸🇮)

Project Eleven raised $6M seed (Variant, Quantonation) in NYC for quantum devices

📚FAVORITE RESOURCES

➡️ Carta’s Q1 2025 VC Fund Report: TVPI is up, but DPI still tough

➡️ Founders Fund’s Scott Nolan on uranium enrichment with General Matter

➡️ AI2030: Responsible AI frameworks + 2025 priorities

If you are curious what we are doing at the AI 20230 check our website and see our priorities for 2025.

🎤EVENTS

If you’re not heading to Reindustrialize in July, you’ve got an amazing second‑best option: the 𝐀𝐈𝐨𝐓 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓: 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐜 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡, taking place July 15–16. We’re doing it fully virtual via Zoom + 𝑴𝒆𝒕𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆 (𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒄𝒐𝒐𝒍 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕?!)🤩

AIoT is one of my favourite topics, and it’s currently reshaping industries at lightning speed!💪 With 50+ world-class speakers from industry and academia, this event isn’t just another webinar. It’s a digital-first, future-forward summit exploring how AI and IoT is transforming industries like #manufacturing, #healthcare, #infrastructure, and more.

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗰𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴-𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀, 𝘃𝗶𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲…🤔

👉 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐭: https://bit.ly/460rm1R