This Week's Good ReadsThe Wall Street Journal - China Is Winning the Race for Intelligent RobotsA WSJ opinion argues that China's industrial policy, deep supply chains and rapid commercial adoption are giving it a decisive lead in "intelligent" robotics-while the U.S. and Europe wrestle with higher costs, regulation and slower deployment. Read the piece.Sifted - Robotics startup Sereact aims to upend the labour market

Sifted profiles Stuttgart-based Sereact and its hardware-agnostic VLA model "Cortex," trained on large, domain-specific datasets and already deployed across 100+ warehouse and factory sites; the company pitches robots-as-a-service, cites a data moat, and eyes hefty capital to scale amid rivals like Physical Intelligence and Skild AI. Read the interview.

Forbes relays a scholar's critique that general-purpose humanoids like Optimus would struggle on Mars-dust, radiation, power and maintenance challenges favor specialized robotic systems over multipurpose humanoids for early off-world work. Read the analysis.

IEEE Spectrum - iRonCub: A Humanoid Robot Designed to Fly Like Iron Man

Evan Ackerman reports that iRonCub3, a jet-powered iCub from Italy's IIT, achieved stable lift-off; the piece explores control challenges (thrust, 800°C exhaust, aerodynamics) and why the research could translate to disaster response and other thrust-vectored platforms. Check it out.

Robotics Companies Funding

• RoboEatz – Undisclosed, Strategic investment round (06 Oct 2025), led by Aramark (PitchBook). Autonomous AI-powered robotic kitchen system for food service venues.
• SwarmFarm Robotics – A$30M, Series B round (02 Oct 2025), led by Edaphon; participants include CEFC, QIC, Emmertech, Tenacious Ventures and Artesian (PitchBook). Australian developer of lightweight autonomous “SwarmBot” farm robots for spraying, weeding and other field tasks.
• AheadForm – ¥100M+, Undisclosed round (Sep 2025), led by Ant Group with participation from Jinqiu Fund (PitchBook). China-based maker of ultra-lifelike humanoid robot heads focused on emotional intelligence and human-robot interaction.
• Summer Robotics – Undisclosed (first close), Series A round (30 Sep 2025), led by Applied Ventures, LLC (PitchBook). U.S. company building the Kortx real-time 3D machine-vision platform for vision-guided robotics in dynamic environments.
• AiM Medical Robotics – $8.1M, Series A round (30 Sep 2025), co-led by IQ Capital and 1540 Ventures (PitchBook). Developer of MRI-compatible neurosurgical robotics enabling image-guided cranial procedures.
• InOrbit.AI – $10M, Series A round (30 Sep 2025), co-led by L’ATTITUDE Ventures and Globant Ventures (PitchBook). Provider of an AI-powered robot orchestration platform (“Space Intelligence”) to manage heterogeneous fleets across enterprise operations.

Robotics News

• MMI completes world's first robotic microsurgical intracranial brain surgery - First-in-human EDAS procedures for Moyamoya disease using MMI's Symani system in an FDA early feasibility study at Buffalo General; neurosurgical use isn't yet cleared. GlobeNewswire
• Open-source controller revives old industrial robot arms - A hobbyist-built controller based on a Zynq-7000 SoC runs real-time Linux with custom FPGA logic and modular interfaces (RS-485/422), aiming to make legacy factory robots usable again. Hackaday
• Renu Robotics targets new markets beyond solar-field mowing - San Antonio's autonomous mower maker brings in a new CEO (from SeekOps), seeks $15M, and explores airport, military base and landfill use cases while operating ~100 units across 20 states. San Antonio Express-News
• Deep-tech VC Wave Function Ventures closes $15.1M Fund I - SpaceX alum Jamie Gull plans ~25 seed/pre-seed bets across aerospace, nuclear and humanoid robotics (e.g., Persona AI), backed by HNWIs and family offices. TechCrunch
• Sereact unveils VLA model 'Cortex' to generalize robot skills - Stuttgart startup says its vision-language-action stack plugs into arms, mobiles and humanoids for natural-language tasks, building on data from 100+ industrial sites. Sifted
• Linux Foundation adopts 'Newton,' an open physics engine for robotics - A GPU-accelerated, differentiable simulator (with OpenUSD interoperability) moves under neutral governance to help narrow the sim-to-real gap. Linux Journal
• Robots help make IVF babies - at least 20 births so far - A Mexico City trial automates most of IVF (computer vision + robotic arms via the 'Aura' system), aiming to cut costs and expand access; ethical and regulatory questions remain. The Washington Post
• DoorDash debuts 'Dot' delivery robot - In-house built bot drives on roads, bike lanes and sidewalks up to ~20 mph; testing in Phoenix now with plans to reach 1.6M residents by end-2025. TechCrunch
• 'Mighty morphing' metatruss robots get AI-driven design - UC Berkeley team's framework (in Nature Communications) optimizes actuator grouping to achieve complex shape changes with fewer control channels; prototypes include a quadruped and morphing helmet. Berkeley Engineering
• Serve Robotics rolls into Chicago with Uber Eats - Sidewalk delivery robots launch across 14 neighborhoods as Serve targets deployment of up to 2,000 units in the U.S. by year-end 2025. GlobeNewswire

‍