This Week's Good ReadsRodney Brooks - Why Today's Humanoids Won't Learn DexterityA classic Brooks reality check: after 60+ years of research, robust manipulation still relies on suction and parallel-jaw grippers, not human-like hands-and current humanoid hype glosses over safety and durability limits. He argues true dexterity (and economically useful bipeds) remains decades out and will likely look very different from today's designs. Read the paost.GeekWire - Robotics Pioneer Siddhartha Srinivasa on 'Last-Mile' Robotics and Joining Madrona

Srinivasa explains why robotics keeps stalling at commercialization's "last mile," why generalization remains the core technical gap, and why he's skeptical that humanoids are the default form factor. He's joining Madrona as a venture partner to back embodied-AI startups in Seattle's growing ecosystem. Read the interview.

DeepMind, UCL and Intrinsic showcase "RoboBallet," an AI that choreographs multiple industrial robot arms to plan tasks and avoid collisions-promising big planning-time reductions versus hand-tuned workflows. Early results are impressive, though real-plant deployment is still ahead. Read the story.

Forbes - Robots and AI Are Rewriting the Future of Surgery

Bernard Marr surveys how AI-enhanced surgical platforms are expanding access to complex procedures and helping offset surgeon shortages, while outlining hurdles around safety, regulation, and skills. Read the analysis.

Business Insider - Most Robots Won't Need Legs, Says Diligent Robotics' Cofounder

Vivian Chu argues wheels beat legs for most commercial tasks; Diligent's hospital robot Moxi has already logged 1.2M+ deliveries across 25+ hospitals, saving significant staff time. Legged forms may fit niches like disaster response, but batteries, safety and ROI dominate real-world choices. Read the Q&A.

Robotics Companies Funding

• Neptune Robotics – $52 M, Series B round (29 Sep 2025), led by Granite Asia; strategic investment from NYK Line (PitchBook). Shenzhen/Hong Kong startup whose autonomous ROVs clean ship hulls to cut fuel burn and emissions.
• Zen Intelligence – ¥1.5 B (~$10 M), Series A round (25 Sep 2025), led by Z Venture Capital; with Angel Bridge and Rice Capital; follow-on from First Light Capital & Incubate Fund; debt from JFC & Resona Bank (PitchBook). Tokyo-based "Physical AI" company automating construction-site inspection/management (zenshot.ai).
• Cosmoserve Space – $3.17 M, Pre-Seed round (25 Sep 2025), led by Alan Rutledge (via AVCF) with AUM Ventures and Shakti VC; participation reported from Ram Shriram (PitchBook). Hyderabad spacetech building robotic "Reviver/Mothercraft" spacecraft for orbital debris removal.
• Lexiang Technology – RMB 200 M (~$27–28 M), Angel+ round (Sep 2025), led by Jinqiu Capital; with Lingma Technology, MPC VII Pte. Ltd., and dotFive Capital (点伍资本). China-based developer of small embodied home robots (indoor Z-Bot, outdoor W-Bot). Note: official website not yet public; linking to WRC exhibitor profile.
• Beatbot – ~RMB 1 B (~$140 M), undisclosed (growth financing) (25 Sep 2025), led by Meituan's DragonBall Capital with Hillhouse, Shunwei, Cathay Innovation, Source Code Capital, Anker Innovations, Monolith, and Yunmu Capital (PitchBook). Premium AI pool-cleaning robots (AquaSense line) scaling globally.
• Horizon Robotics – $821 M, Top-up share placement (25–26 Sep 2025), bookbuilt to institutional investors; 639M Class B shares at HK$9.99 each (Crunchbase). Beijing-founded ADAS/automotive AI chipset company listed in Hong Kong (9660.HK).
• Alloy – $4.5 M, Pre-Seed round (25 Sep 2025), led by Blackbird (PitchBook). Sydney startup building a "Databricks for robotics" platform to search and analyze ROS/MCAP, images, logs, and telemetry.

Robotics News

• Autonomous Truck Developer Kodiak AI Goes Public - The self-driving truck company completed its merger with Ares Acquisition Corp. II and began trading on Nasdaq on Sept. 25, 2025 under tickers KDK and KDKRW. Transport Topics
• R²D²: Three Neural Breakthroughs Transforming Robot Learning from NVIDIA Research - NVIDIA Research highlights NeRD, Dexplore, and VT-Refine-techniques unveiled at CoRL 2025 to speed sim-to-real transfer, dexterous manipulation, and visuo-tactile bimanual assembly. NVIDIA Technical Blog
• Google DeepMind's new AI models can search the web to help robots complete tasks - Gemini Robotics 1.5 and Robotics-ER 1.5 enable robots to plan multi-step actions, consult web search for local rules, and transfer skills across different robot platforms. The Verge
• NASA's Astrobee Robots Advance Through Strategic Partnership - NASA details progress of the Astrobee free-flying robots on the ISS through a strategic partnership enabling expanded autonomy experiments. NASA
• Meituan-Backed AI Robotics Firm Mech-Mind Is Said to Plan HK IPO - The computer-vision robotics company is reportedly preparing a Hong Kong listing to fund expansion of its industrial AI offerings. Bloomberg
• Alibaba Integrates Nvidia Robotics Software in Its AI Platform - Alibaba Cloud will offer Nvidia's "physical AI" robotics tools to customers building everything from humanoids to autonomous vehicles. Bloomberg
• ABS and Persona AI Partner to Bring Humanoid Robotics to Shipyards - An MOU establishes joint projects to adapt humanoid robots for shipyard inspections and develop standards for robotic data used in digital/remote surveys. Business Wire
• HDMI: Learning Interactive Humanoid Whole-Body Control from Human Videos - New research project page outlining a framework (HDMI) that learns whole-body humanoid-object interaction skills directly from monocular videos, with sim-to-real demonstrations. HDMI Project Page

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