This Week's Good ReadsFinancial Times — Physical AI: Robotics Are Poised to Revolutionise Business

‍Lucy Colback's deep dive into how AI-powered robots are moving beyond factory cages into dynamic, multi-task environments. Covers the technology layers from physics engines to training approaches, highlights deployments at Amazon, Foxconn, and healthcare, and explains why good data remains the key bottleneck. Read the analysis here.

‍Bloomberg — China's Humanoids Were Everywhere at America's Top Tech Show

Saritha Rai reports from CES 2026 on the overwhelming Chinese presence in the humanoid robotics space. Fourier, Booster, X-Humanoid, Unitree, and others dominated the show floor with synchronized dances, table tennis, and kung fu demos — while Nvidia and AMD talked chips. A reminder that the US-China physical AI race is heating up. Read the story here.

Financial Times (Alphaville) — Barclays' Shiftless Robot Report

Louis Ashworth's sharp take on Barclays' bullish $200B humanoid market forecast. The research claims robots operating 24/7 at even half human efficiency can outproduce workers — but Alphaville points out the analysts seem to have forgotten that shift work exists. A witty reminder that Marx got there first. Read the commentary here.

Financial Times — Robots Only Half as Efficient as Humans, Says Leading Chinese Producer

William Langley interviews UBTech's Michael Tam, who reveals Walker S2 robots currently hit just 30–50% of human productivity on specific tasks like box stacking and QC. Despite this, manufacturers are racing to order them — nobody wants to be "staying behind" Tesla or BYD. UBTech targets 80% efficiency by 2027 and 10,000 units this year. Read the interview here.

Robotics and AI Companies Funding

• Synthesia – $200 M, Series E round (26 Jan 2026), led by GV with participation from Evantic, Hedosophia, NVentures (NVIDIA), Accel, Kleiner Perkins, NEA, PSP Growth, Air Street, and MMC. Valuation: $4B (Crunchbase, PitchBook). London-based AI video platform enabling enterprises to create professional videos with AI avatars from text; serves 90%+ of the Fortune 100.
• Rare Earths Americas – US$15 M, Private Raise (20 Jan 2026), investors not publicly disclosed (Crunchbase). Denver-based critical minerals company advancing heavy rare earth element supply from projects in the U.S. (Georgia) and Brazil.
• Cosmoserve Space – $3.17 M, Pre-Seed round (25 Sep 2025), led by Alan Rutledge (AVCF) with AUM Ventures, Ram Shriram (Sherpalo), and Shakti VC (Crunchbase, PitchBook). Hyderabad-based spacetech startup building autonomous robotic spacecraft for orbital debris removal, founded by former ISRO Gaganyaan Deputy Project Director.
• Saga Robotics – $11.2 M+ (supplementary close), Series C top-up (Jan 2026), new funding from Xinomavro Ventures. Total raised: ~$44M (Crunchbase, Tracxn, PitchBook). Oslo-based agricultural robotics company deploying Thorvald robots for UV-C treatment to suppress powdery mildew in vineyards and strawberry farms.
• Inferact – $150 M, Seed round (22 Jan 2026), co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners with Altimeter, Databricks Ventures, Redpoint, Sequoia, ZhenFund, and others. Valuation: $800M. (Crunchbase) Bay Area-based AI inference startup commercializing the open-source vLLM project to reduce inference costs and improve GPU utilization.
• AnGard Microwave – Undisclosed (strategic minority stake), Seed round (22 Jan 2026), led by NUNC Capital with existing shareholders TNO and University of Twente (Dealroom). Enschede (Netherlands)-based deep-tech spin-off developing compact, directional high-power microwave systems for counter-drone and electronic warfare applications.
• Zipline – $600 M, Late-Stage round (21 Jan 2026), led by Fidelity Management & Research with Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity, and Tiger Global. Valuation: $7.6B. Total raised: ~$1.5B+ (Crunchbase, PitchBook). Bay Area-based drone delivery company expanding U.S. operations to Houston, Phoenix, and additional states; has completed 2M+ autonomous deliveries. Grishin Robotics portfolio company.
• RISE Robotics – $5.3 M, Crowdfunding (2025), via Wefunder with 2,200+ retail investors. Total raised: $26.3M+ (Crunchbase). Somerville (MA)-based company developing Beltdraulic™ fluid-free linear actuation technology to replace hydraulics in heavy machinery; holds Guinness World Record for strongest robotic arm prototype.
• Dam Secure – US$4 M (~A$6.1M), Seed round (Jan 2026), led by Paladin Capital Group with strategic angels Pieter Danhieux, Anthony Woodward, Phaedon Stough, and Steen Andersson (Crunchbase). Sydney (AU) and San Francisco-based AI security startup developing a platform to enforce security rules for AI-generated code in plain English.
• Ethernovia – >$90 M, Series B round (20 Jan 2026), led by Maverick Silicon with Socratic Partners, Conduit Capital, CDIB-TEN Capital, and existing investors Porsche SE, Qualcomm Ventures, Fall Line Capital. Total raised: >$154M (Crunchbase, PitchBook). San Jose-based semiconductor startup building Ethernet packet processors for automotive networking and physical AI systems in vehicles and robots.
• Orbem – €55.5 M, Series B round (20 Jan 2026), led by Innovation Industries with Supernova Invest, General Catalyst, 83North, The Venture Collective, and Possible Ventures. Total raised: €85.5M (Crunchbase, PitchBook). Munich-based deep-tech company industrializing AI-powered MRI for in-ovo sexing in poultry, produce quality inspection, and future healthcare applications.
• Unbox Robotics – $28 M, Series B round (20 Jan 2026), co-led by ICICI Venture and Redstart Labs (Info Edge) with F-Prime, 3one4 Capital, Navam Capital, and Force Ventures. Total raised: $42.1M (Crunchbase, Tracxn, PitchBook). Pune (India)-based warehouse automation company deploying swarm-intelligence robotic parcel sortation systems that reduce footprint by 50–80%.

Robotics and AI News

• Qwen3-Max Thinking — Summary unavailable (the source page didn’t return readable text in our fetch environment). Qwen Blog
• ollama launch — Introduces ollama launch, a one-command way to set up and run coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, OpenCode, Codex) against local or cloud models without extra config. Ollama Blog
• Google Acquires Common Sense Machines to Enhance AI Capabilities — Reports Google confirmed acquiring Common Sense Machines, a small team building generative models that convert 2D images into 3D digital assets (terms not disclosed). GuruFocus
• Collaborating with Khan Academy to build the best AI tools for learners — Google announces a partnership with Khan Academy to build new AI learning tools powered by Gemini models, including integration into Writing Coach (and later Reading Coach), plus related uses in Schoolhouse.world. Google Blog
• Image generation (experimental) — Ollama adds experimental image generation on macOS (Windows/Linux “coming soon”) and highlights supported text-to-image models such as Z-Image Turbo and FLUX.2 Klein. Ollama Blog
• D4RT: Teaching AI to see the world in four dimensions — Google DeepMind introduces D4RT, a unified model for 4D scene reconstruction and tracking from video, positioned as far more efficient than prior methods and targeted at real-time uses (including robotics). Google DeepMind
• Hyundai Motor Value Leaps Past GM’s as Atlas Fuels Robot Fever — Bloomberg reports Hyundai’s market value overtook GM’s amid a sharp rally, with investor enthusiasm tied to the company’s robotics push (including Boston Dynamics’ Atlas). Bloomberg
• Serve Robotics to Acquire Diligent Robotics, to Expand Physical AI Platform — Says Serve Robotics agreed to acquire Diligent Robotics (maker of the Moxi hospital robot) in a stock deal, aiming to expand from outdoor delivery into indoor/hospital environments and feed more real-world data into its autonomy platform. The AI Insider

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