This Week's Good ReadsTIME — The Robot in Your KitchenInside Figure AI’s push to unveil the Figure 03 humanoid: a leap toward domestic chores, cheaper components (design claims ~90% lower manufacturing costs), and a new “Helix” neural network trained from human-pilot videos—tempered by honest demos that still drop laundry and struggle with folding. Read the story.International Federation of Robotics — Service Robots See Global Growth Boom

Fresh numbers from IFR’s World Robotics 2025: Service Robots: nearly 200k professional units sold in 2024 (+9%), led by transport/logistics (≈102.9k, +14%), with cleaning up 34% and hospitality down 11%; medical robots surged 91% (~16.7k). RaaS continues to expand, and consumer robots topped ~20 million units (+11%). Read the release.

A concise ethics brief arguing for clearer definitions, cultural sensitivity, and guardrails as social robots blur lines of trust, deception, and “moral agency”—and urging bottom-up engagement to inform policy and governance. Read the essay.

Robotics Companies Funding

• ecoRobotix – $150 M, Series C & D rounds (13 Oct 2025), led by Highland Europe with European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF) and McWin Food Ecosystem Fund (PitchBook). Swiss ag-robotics maker behind the ARA ultra-precision sprayer that cuts herbicide use via plant-by-plant AI.
• SIR Robotics (Zhejiang) – Undisclosed, Strategic investment (08 Jul 2025), from AgiBot via capital increase and share expansion. China-based industrial robot system integrator under Wolong Electric; designs custom production lines for automotive, aerospace and more.
• Cyberwave – €7 M, Seed round (08 Oct 2025), led by United Ventures with The TechShop, Vento (Exor) and Pi Campus (Tracxn). Milan startup building an “operating layer” to connect AI agents and foundation models to real-world robots and machines.
• Luna Robotics – €1 M, Pre-seed round (07 Oct 2025), led by Coinvest Capital with Plug & Play EMEA and angels from LatBAN and NGL (Crunchbase). Lithuanian defense-tech company whose LunaCam enables night-ops vision for tactical FPV drones.
• Energy Robotics – $13.5 M, Series A round (07 Oct 2025), co-led by Blue Bear Capital and Climate Investment; joined by Futury Capital, Hessen Kapital, Kensho VC and TADTech (PitchBook). Germany-based provider of AI software for autonomous inspection robots and drones in oil & gas, chemical and power facilities.
• Monogram Technologies – n/a, Acquisition (07 Oct 2025), acquired by Zimmer Biomet; consideration includes $4.04/share cash plus up to $12.37/share CVR milestones (PitchBook). US orthopedic-robotics firm behind the FDA-cleared mBôs™ knee replacement system and fully autonomous robotic procedures.

Robotics News

• UK's Wayve in talks with SoftBank and Microsoft for $2bn fundraise - Report says the autonomous-driving startup is negotiating a roughly $2 billion round to scale its AI/AV platform. Financial Times
• EHang debuts VT35 long-range pilotless eVTOL - The new lift-and-cruise model targets intercity use; EHang cites ~200 km design range and ongoing CAAC certification work, with a standard version priced at RMB 6.5m in China. GlobeNewswire
• "Saw, Sword, or Shovel": AI maps functional similarities between tools - Stanford researchers unveil a vision model that learns "functional correspondence" so robots can generalize tool use (e.g., transferring skills from a trowel to a shovel); work to be presented at ICCV. Stanford HAI
• Stereotaxis and CardioFocus team on robotic PFA for arrhythmias - The companies are collaborating to pair robotic navigation with pulsed-field ablation technologies for treating cardiac arrhythmias. MassDevice
• Startups will pay you to film chores to train household robots - Data providers and AI startups like Encord, Micro1 and Scale AI are ramping robotics work, paying people to record tasks (e.g., folding laundry) to build robot training datasets. Business Insider
• China's AgiBot plans Hong Kong IPO next year - The humanoid-robot maker is eyeing a HK$40–50bn ($5.1–6.4bn) valuation and has tapped banks including CICC, CITIC and Morgan Stanley, sources say; listing could come by 2026. Reuters
• Sona Comstar partners with Germany's NEURA Robotics to develop humanoids - The auto-components firm signed an MoU to co-develop and industrialize robots and humanoids in India and abroad. Business Standard
• Ganiga to showcase AI waste-sorting robots at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 - Italian startup's "Hoooly" robotic bins and retrofittable smart lids use generative AI to auto-sort trash and recycling; the company will compete in Startup Battlefield (Oct 27–29, SF). TechCrunch
• SoftBank to buy ABB's robots business for $5.4B - The deal advances Masayoshi Son's "Physical AI" strategy; ABB plans to focus proceeds on electrification/automation, with closing expected in 2026. Reuters
• Qualcomm acquires Arduino to bolster robotics and prototyping - Arduino retains its brand and open-source mission; Qualcomm teased a new "Dragonwing"-based Arduino board aimed at robots needing high compute and real-time control. Reuters

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