This Week's Good Reads

Coco Robotics — Scaling Physical AI for Sidewalk Autonomy

‍Coco’s chief AI scientist Bolei Zhou lays out a three-pillar roadmap for sidewalk delivery robots: learning navigation from a massive fleet’s video data, stress-testing policies in high-fidelity urban simulation, and continuously improving autonomy from human teleoperator interventions. It’s a compact look at how “physical AI” foundation models are being built for messy real-world streets. Read the post.

‍The Wall Street Journal — Old Age Will Be Different in the Robotic Age

L.S. Dugdale explores how assistive robots and AI companions could transform later life—helping older adults get out of bed, bathe, and stave off loneliness—while raising hard questions about dignity, human touch, and what we’re willing to outsource to machines as societies age. Read the column.

Dev Patnaik uses 1X’s Neo home humanoid to argue that the real barrier to domestic robots isn’t just laggy AI or safety, but America’s cultural stories about robot uprisings and servitude. He contrasts Neo with more acceptable “robot forms” like dishwashers, Roombas, and pet-like bots, and makes the case that innovators need social permission, not just technical breakthroughs. Read the analysis.

Edge AI and Vision Alliance — Humanoid Robots 2025: The Race to Useful Intelligence

Yole Group’s market brief forecasts humanoid robots growing into a $51 billion market by 2035, with industrial deployments now, consumer uses next, and medical applications later as regulation catches up. It highlights how advances in AI, dexterous hands, cheaper actuators, and aggressive Chinese OEMs are pushing humanoids from lab prototypes toward real-world logistics, factory, and eventually care roles. Dig into the market outlook.

Robotics Companies Funding

• Bone AI – $12 M, Seed round (17 Nov 2025), led by Third Prime with strategic participation from Kolon Group and a >$1.5 M personal investment from founder DK Lee. Dual-headquartered in Palo Alto and Seoul, Bone builds full-stack autonomous drones, UGVs, and “mission-ready” physical AI systems for defense and logistics.
• Haike Hongxin Digital Technology (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd. – up to HK$58.65 M, strategic capital injection (11 Nov 2025), from Jiangsu Horizon Chain Supermarket (HK:2625), giving Horizon a path to control after an earlier RMB 25 M raise in H1 2025. Kunshan-based AI and robotics vehicle for Horizon’s supermarket and convenience-retail network, focused on service robots and unmanned stores.
• Exwayz – €1 M, Seed-equivalent round (17 Nov 2025), led by CentraleSupélec Venture with additional non-dilutive support from the France 2030 i-Lab program via Bpifrance. (PitchBook) Paris-based developer of LiDAR-only 3D perception/SLAM software that enables centimeter-level localization for autonomous robots in GPS-denied environments like ports, factories, tunnels and dense city streets.
• Dexmal – ≈¥1.0 B (≈$138 M), Series A and A+ rounds (Nov 2025 announcement), with the A+ led exclusively by Alibaba Group and the prior Series A led by NIO Capital; other backers include Hongtai Fund, Jiukun VC, Legend Capital, Lenovo Capital & Incubation Group, Qiming Venture Partners, Xichuang Investment and Zhengjing Fund. Beijing- and Shenzhen-based embodied-AI startup building an end-to-end stack (models, control systems, hardware platforms, cloud collaboration) plus Dexbotic, an open VLA toolbox turning language and vision into reliable robot actions.
• Vay – $60 M, strategic growth investment (10 Nov 2025), from Grab, with additional performance-based options and warrants that could take Grab’s total commitment up to $410 M and potentially make it Vay’s majority owner. (Tracxn) Berlin-based “teledriving” company whose remote drivers deliver EVs to customers, who then self-drive while Vay teleoperates pickup and return; already doing tens of thousands of trips in Las Vegas and preparing to operate at scale under Germany’s remote-driving regulations.
• Teradar – $150 M, Series B round (12 Nov 2025), led by VXI Capital with participation from The Engine Ventures, Capricorn Investment Group, Ibex Investors and Lockheed Martin Ventures. (PitchBook) Boston-based developer of solid-state terahertz “vision engines” targeting automotive ADAS and autonomy, aiming to combine radar’s robustness with lidar-like definition at unit costs in the low hundreds and up to 20× the resolution of today’s automotive radar.
• Euler – €2 M, Seed round (12 Nov 2025), co-led by Frumtak Ventures and Kvanted, on top of an ISK 200 M pre-seed in 2024 from Icelandic and international funds. (Crunchbase) Reykjavík-based startup offering browser-native AI defect-detection software for metal 3D printing (LPBF/SLS) that uses existing machine cameras and feeds results directly into Autodesk Fusion, cutting failed-build time and boosting OEE.
• Dryft – $5 M, Seed round (10 Nov 2025), led by General Catalyst with participation from Neo, Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners and angels including Jeff Wilke, Claire Hughes Johnson, Markus Flik, Qasar Younis, Steve Blank and others. (Crunchbase) San Francisco-based company building an “agentic OS” for manufacturing, combining context-aware AI agents and mathematical optimization to automate planning and decision-making across gaps between existing ERP systems.
• Foxglove – $40 M, Series B round (12 Nov 2025), led by Bessemer Venture Partners (Alexandra Sukin, Jeremy Levine), following a $3.7 M seed and a $15 M Series A led by Eclipse, bringing total funding to $58.7 M. (Tracxn) San Francisco-based provider of a data and observability platform for “physical AI” that ingests, time-syncs and queries petabyte-scale multimodal robotics logs (3D, video, audio, telemetry) from edge to cloud.
• Surge Future – hundreds of millions RMB, Pre-A round (10 Nov 2025 announcement), following a “tens of millions RMB” angel round in Jan 2025 led by Zhuichuang Venture Capital with Yipu Fund participating; Pre-A investors have not yet been publicly disclosed. Suzhou-based Dreame-ecosystem company building hovering pool-cleaning robots using underwater LiDAR and 360° panoramic navigation, already shipping over 20,000 units in six months and lining up retail channels including Lowe’s, Bauhaus, Best Buy and Home Depot.
• Unbounded Dynamics – ¥300 M in its initial angel round and >¥500 M total including an Angel+ extension, Angel and Angel+ rounds (10 Nov 2025), co-led by HongShan (formerly Sequoia China) and Linear Capital with participation from BV (Baidu Ventures), Eastern Bell Capital, Hillhouse Ventures, Horizon Robotics, Huaye Tiancheng Capital and Tongge Ventures. Beijing-based embodied-intelligence startup developing a “general brain” and operational-intelligence stack for dual-arm wheeled robots aimed at factory automation.
• DreamTech – tens of millions RMB, early-stage (angel/seed) rounds (11 Nov 2025), with Hillhouse Ventures, Zhiyuan Robotics (AgiBot) and Houxue Capital as disclosed investors and Gaohe Capital acting as exclusive financial advisor. Shanghai-based robotics startup (founded Sep 2025) building the XDream series of emotion-centric companion robots with a “digital brain,” targeting prototype tests in Q1 2026 and presales in Q3 2026.

Robotics News

• UBTECH Humanoid Robot Walker S2 Begins Mass Production and Delivery, with Orders Exceeding 800 Million Yuan — UBTECH starts mass production and rollout of several hundred Walker S2 industrial humanoid robots, backed by more than ¥800 million (≈US$112 million) in orders and a plan to scale capacity to thousands of units annually across auto plants, smart factories, logistics hubs, and data centers. PR Newswire
• Neocis Unveils Next-Generation AI-Powered Robotic System for Dental Implants — Neocis launches Yomi S, a next-gen, FDA-cleared robotic system and YomiPlan AI software that automates implant planning and allows a single dentist to perform minimally invasive, robot-assisted implant procedures more efficiently. GlobeNewswire
• Unitree's new wheeled humanoid robot can work for 6 hours nonstop — Unitree introduces the G1-D, its first wheeled humanoid robot designed for fast industrial and warehouse tasks and for collecting data to train AI models, combining a hardware platform with tools for simulation, annotation, and on-device inference. Interesting Engineering
• DoorDash and Coco Robotics Expand Partnership to Miami, Broadening Autonomous Delivery Across Grocery and Retail — DoorDash and Coco extend their autonomous-delivery partnership from Los Angeles and Chicago to Miami, using Coco’s zero-emission sidewalk robots to fulfill DashMart and national grocer orders and broaden last-mile robotic delivery. PR Newswire
• Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs speeds up the world-model race with Marble, its first commercial product — World Labs, co-founded by Fei-Fei Li, debuts Marble, a combined software, data, and reference-robot platform meant to help teams build and deploy “world model”-based robotics faster, from simulation and data pipelines through to real-world robots. TechCrunch
• Self-driving trucks startup Einride plans to go public via a SPAC — Swedish freight-tech startup Einride is preparing to go public through a SPAC merger to raise growth capital for its electric and autonomous trucking network and expand operations in Europe and the United States. TechCrunch
• Star CM and Unitree form joint venture to develop consumer IP robots, shares surge over 20% — Entertainment firm Star CM and humanoid-robot maker Unitree create a joint venture to build consumer robots based on popular entertainment IP, a move that sends Star CM’s shares up more than 20% on expectations of new consumer-robot products. Pandaily
• Serve Robotics CEO Says Advertising Could Fully Fund Business — Serve Robotics CEO Ali Kashani argues that ad revenue from branded, sidewalk delivery robots could eventually cover all operating costs, as the company reports rapidly growing branding income and expands its fleet across multiple U.S. cities. Bloomberg
• Taking riders further, safely with freeways — Waymo begins allowing rider trips that use freeways in the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, extending its robotaxi service to high-speed roads while emphasizing redundant safety systems and a phased rollout. Waymo Blog
• ‘If it tells me to walk, I get my stick’: How robots are caring for Britain’s vulnerable and elderly — The UK is rolling out GenieConnect home-care robots via provider Cera to nearly 1,000 people, using voice-driven assistants to prompt medication, hydration and appointments, monitor wellbeing, and offer companionship, helping ease strain on carers and the NHS. The Independent
• Kraken Robotics Expands Reach in Australia and New Zealand with BlueZone Partnership — Kraken Robotics partners with BlueZone Group to expand sales and support of its sonar and subsea robotics solutions in Australia and New Zealand, targeting defence and commercial marine customers in the region. TipRanks
• China’s humanoid robots get factory jobs as UBTech’s model scores US$112 million in orders — UBTECH’s Walker S2 humanoid robots are being deployed on factory floors and data-collection projects across China, with orders exceeding 800 million yuan (around US$112 million) and the company’s Hong Kong–listed shares climbing sharply on humanoid-robot momentum. South China Morning Post
• Agibot and Ant Group launch joint venture focused on AI and robotics — Robotics startup AgiBot and Ant Group set up a joint venture to combine embodied-AI robots with cloud and financial-tech infrastructure, aiming to provide AI-plus-robotics platforms for logistics, manufacturing and other industrial scenarios. TechNode
• Capgemini, Orano unveil AI humanoid robot for nuclear sector — Capgemini and nuclear group Orano present a humanoid robot concept that uses AI to perform inspection and intervention tasks in radioactive or hard-to-reach environments in nuclear facilities, improving worker safety and supporting digital-twin training use cases. AI Magazine
• Xpeng Shares Surge on Optimism Over Progress in Humanoid Robots — Xpeng’s Hong Kong-listed shares jump to multi-year highs as investors bet on the Chinese EV maker’s advances in humanoid robots and autonomous-driving tech, viewing its robotics work as an important growth driver beyond core vehicle sales. Bloomberg

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