This Week's Good ReadsForbes - Robocars 2025 In Review: Tesla v. Waymo And More

‍Brad Templeton’s year-end roundup of autonomous-vehicle headlines, framing the biggest 2025 developments through the Tesla-vs-Waymo contrast and other notable “robocar” storylines (note: Forbes may be paywalled). Read the analysis here.

‍RemoteLabor.ai - Remote Labor Index (RLI): Measuring AI Automation of Remote Work (PDF)

A research paper introducing the Remote Labor Index—a benchmark built from real, economically valuable freelance-style projects—to empirically test how well frontier AI agents can automate end-to-end “remote work,” plus methodology and early performance results. Read the paper.

CB Insights - State of AI 2025: Venture & Market Trends

CB Insights’ data-heavy “State of AI 2025” report: charts, funding/deal flow breakdowns, and theme-by-theme takes on what changed in 2025 across the AI ecosystem (infrastructure, apps, agents, enterprise adoption, and more). Get the full report.

ABB Robotics - Collaborative Robot (Cobot) News Archive

A running archive of ABB cobot press releases and customer stories—a useful way to track the practical applications, product updates, and market signals that are shaping cobot adoption heading into 2026. Browse the archive.

Robotics and AI Companies Funding

Pre-seed / Seed

• Terra Industries - $22 M, Seed extension round (Feb 16, 2026), led by Lux Capital with 8VC and SV Angel. Builds autonomous aerial and ground systems for critical infrastructure security across Africa.
• Articulus Surgical - Undisclosed, Seed round (Feb 11, 2026), led by Kalaari Capital with Gaurav Agarwal and Sandeep Daga. Develops surgical robotics for minimally invasive soft-tissue procedures with focus on high-volume abdominal surgery.
• Smart Bricks - $5 M, Pre-seed round (Feb 11, 2026), led by a16z speedrun with 500 Global, Cento Ventures, and Techstars. AI-powered real estate investing platform that ingests 1M+ data feeds to surface top investment properties.
• Occam Industries - €3 M, Pre-seed round (Feb 11, 2026), led by Presto Tech Horizons. Builds computer-vision autopilot software that keeps drones operating when GPS and communications are unavailable.
• Allonic - $7.2 M, Pre-seed round (Feb 10, 2026), led by Visionaries Club with Day One Capital and Prototype Capital. Develops 3D Tissue Braiding technology for manufacturing monolithic tendon-driven robotic hand components.
• ACE ROBOTICS - Undisclosed, Angel round (Feb 10, 2026), led by Ant Group with Qiming Venture Partners and Sense Capital. SenseTime-backed spin-out building operating systems and world models for embodied AI robots.
• Simple AI - $14 M, Seed round (Feb 10, 2026), led by First Harmonic with Conviction, Samsung Next, and Y Combinator. Builds low-latency voice AI agents for B2C commerce calls with sub-850ms response times.
• Genflux - $4.2 M, Seed round (Feb 10, 2026), led by Symbolic Capital with Borderless Capital, Glasswing Ventures, and Radical Ventures. AI answer visibility platform that helps brands monitor and optimize their presence in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
• Phylo - $13.5 M, Seed round (Feb 3, 2026), led by Andreessen Horowitz with Menlo Ventures, Anthropic, and SV Angel. AI-native workspace for end-to-end biology workflows with reproducible and inspectable agent orchestration.
• Electric Twin - $14 M, Seed round, led by Atomico with LocalGlobe, Mercuri, and Samos Investments. Synthetic audience platform that replaces traditional market research with AI-simulated population behaviors.
• Stanhope AI - $8 M, Seed round, led by Frontline Ventures with Paladin Capital Group, UCL Technology Fund, and MMC Ventures. Builds brain-inspired world models based on active inference for adaptive AI in robotics and defense.
• Upside Robotics - $7.5 M, Seed round, led by Plural with Garage Capital, Entrepreneurs First, and Moxxie Ventures. Develops lightweight autonomous robots for precision fertilizer application in corn crops.
• The Compression Company - $3.4 M, Pre-seed round, led by Long Journey with Ludlow Ventures, Entrepreneurs First, and Fractal Capital. AI-based compression software that enables satellites to transmit up to 10x more data through existing bandwidth.
• INLEAP Photonics GmbH - Undisclosed, Pre-seed round, led by HTGF with VENTIS CAPITAL. German deep tech spin-off developing laser-based counter-drone systems that neutralize threats in milliseconds.
• Sitegeist - €4 M, Pre-seed round, led by b2venture with OpenOcean. TU Munich spin-out building AI-powered modular robots for automated concrete renovation and infrastructure repair.
• Agovor Limited - AU$3 M, Pre-seed round, led by Tenacious Ventures with Hort Innovation and Artesian. New Zealand agtech robotics startup building autonomous systems for vineyard and orchard operations.
• Maestro Tech, Inc. - $1.2 M, Pre-seed round, led by New Stack Ventures with Family VC and Roark's Drift. Builds agentic operating system for mortgage origination that orchestrates workflows across existing tech stacks.

Series A

• Apptronik - $520 M extension, Series A round (Feb 11, 2026, total now $935M+), led by AT&T Ventures with John Deere, Qatar Investment Authority, Google, and Mercedes-Benz. Builds Apollo humanoid robots for factory, warehouse, and logistics applications.
• Trener Robotics - $32 M, Series A round (Feb 10, 2026), co-led by Engine Ventures and IAG Capital Partners with Emergent Ventures and Berkeley SkyDeck. Develops Acteris, a robot-agnostic skills layer that converts plain language instructions into executable robot behavior.
• Backslash Security - $19 M, Series A round (Feb 10, 2026), led by KOMPAS VC with StageOne Ventures, Maniv, and Shlomo Kramer. Security platform for AI coding agents and MCP servers used by developers.
• Equal Parts - $23 M, Series A round (Feb 10, 2026), led by Inspired Capital with Equal Ventures, Max Ventures, and Genius Ventures. Consolidator for independent insurance agencies that preserves local brands while centralizing back-office operations with AI.
• Algorized - $13 M, Series A round (Feb 10, 2026), led by Run Ventures with Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund and Berkeley SkyDeck Fund. Edge-native predictive safety engine using UWB/mmWave signals for real-time human detection in industrial environments.
• Newo.ai - $25 M, Series A round (Feb 10, 2026), led by Ratmir Timashev with Constructor Capital and Acrobator Ventures. Builds always-on AI voice and text agents for SMB reception and customer service with zero-hallucination architecture.
• Blockbrain - €17.5 M, Series A round, co-led by Alstin Capital and 13books Capital with Giesecke+Devrient Ventures and LBBW Venture Capital. GDPR-compliant knowledge twin platform that captures and institutionalizes employee expertise with AI agents.
• Didero - $30 M, Series A round, led by Chemistry with M12, First Round Capital, and Headline. Agentic AI platform that autonomously executes procurement workflows from quote to payment for manufacturing supply chains.
• WINN.AI - $18 M, Series A round, co-led by Insight Partners and Mangusta Capital with S CAPITAL. Real-time AI sales coaching platform that provides live guidance during customer conversations.

Series B

• tem - $75 M, Series B round (Feb 10, 2026), led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with Atomico, AlbionVC, and Schroders Capital. AI transaction engine and neo-utility interface that automates energy procurement and contracting.
• ManageMy - $20 M, Series B round (Feb 11, 2026, $45M total), co-led by Ventura Capital and OCVC. AI and no-code platform that orchestrates insurance workflows across life, health, and P&C for carriers and brokers.
• Andercore - $40 M, Series B round, co-led by Atomico, Project A, and Inven Capital. Digital platform for industrial wholesale trade across infrastructure, energy, and building materials in Europe.
• OPAQUE Systems - $24 M, Series B round ($300M valuation), led by Walden Catalyst Ventures with Intel Capital, Race Capital, and Storm Ventures. Confidential AI platform enabling secure computation on encrypted data for enterprise AI workloads.
• Bretton AI - $75 M, Series B round, led by Sapphire Ventures with Greylock Partners, Thomson Reuters Ventures, and Canvas Ventures. AI agents for financial crime compliance that complete AML, KYC, and sanctions investigations in minutes.

Series C and beyond

• Anthropic - $30 B, Series G round ($380B valuation), led by GIC and Coatue Management with Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital, and General Catalyst. Frontier AI research company building Claude, one of the world's most capable large language models.
• Databricks - $7 B, Growth round (Feb 9, 2026, $134B valuation), led by Insight Partners with Thrive Capital, MGX, and Andreessen Horowitz. Enterprise data and AI platform building Lakebase serverless Postgres and Genie chat-to-data products.
• Runway - $315 M, Series E round (Feb 10, 2026, $5.3B valuation), led by General Atlantic with Google, NVIDIA, and Salesforce Ventures. AI video generation and world model platform for creative and entertainment applications.
• DentalMonitoring - $100 M, Growth round (Feb 11, 2026), led by Lazard Elaia Capital with ISALT and Straumann Group. AI-guided smartphone scanning platform for orthodontic monitoring with 2M+ patients tracked.
• Neysa - $1.2 B, Growth round, led by Blackstone with TVS Capital Funds, 360 ONE Asset, and Nexus Venture Partners. AI infrastructure company deploying 20,000+ GPUs across India for sovereign AI compute capacity.
• Quantum Systems - €150 M, Growth financing, led by European Investment Bank with Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, and KfW. Munich-based drone unicorn building multi-domain autonomous systems for defense and security.

Robotics and AI News

• Power of the collective: Modular robot boosts resilience by sharing resources - EPFL researchers show modular robots that share power, sensing, and communication across units can remain functional even when individual modules fail. TechXplore
• Waymo’s next-gen robotaxi is ready for passengers — and also ‘high-volume production’ - Waymo says its sixth-generation autonomous system is ready for passenger trips (starting with employees in SF/LA) and is built for scaling with cheaper sensors and high-volume manufacturing. The Verge
• Qwen 3.5 announcement (agentic AI upgrade) - Alibaba’s Qwen 3.5 focuses on “agentic” capabilities for following instructions and executing multi-step tasks, with claims of improved performance and cost efficiency (including an open-source release). Qwen
• OpenClaw founder Steinberger joins OpenAI, open-source bot becomes foundation - OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI to work on personal agents, while OpenClaw is slated to live on as an open-source project under a foundation with OpenAI support. Reuters
• Researchers find a way to 3D print one of industry’s hardest engineering materials - Hiroshima University reports a method to 3D print WC–Co cemented carbides (ultra-hard materials used in cutting/construction tools), aiming to reduce waste and cost versus conventional manufacturing. Hiroshima University
• ByteDance’s new AI video model goes viral as China looks for second DeepSeek moment - ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 is drawing viral attention in China (including reactions from Elon Musk), positioned as a multimodal system for professional film, e-commerce, and advertising production. Reuters
• Nordic AI corridor? Mistral AI joins the rush with a €1.2B Sweden investment - Mistral AI says it will invest €1.2B in Sweden to build AI infrastructure (data centers/compute) as Europe pushes for more independent AI capacity. Tech Funding News
• Anthropic’s Claude Cowork finally lands on Windows — and it wants to automate your workday - Anthropic released its Claude Cowork agent for Windows, bringing file access and multi-step task automation (with MCP connectors) to the Windows desktop ecosystem. VentureBeat

‍