Newsletter #46

This Week's Good ReadsTechCrunch - Why these startup CEOs don't think AI will replace human roles

‍At Web Summit Qatar, the CEOs of Read AI and Lucidya argue that AI is replacing tasks more than entire jobs: humans stay in the loop while workflows, support, and sales execution get faster. The piece also highlights the shift toward lean, AI-native teams and how customer acceptance of AI assistants has increased as long as outcomes are fast and accurate. Read the analysis here.

‍IoT Analytics - 60+ emerging industrial digital technologies you should have on your radar (2026 update)

IoT Analytics maps 64 industrial digital technologies across AI/ML, automation/robotics, IoT connectivity, and cloud/software/security, ranking each by maturity and expected impact. One key takeaway: highest attention is often on less mature areas (agentic AI, physical AI, humanoids), while many foundational technologies are already mature and quietly scaling. Read the report here.

Hugging Face (NVIDIA) - Introducing NVIDIA Cosmos Policy for Advanced Robot Control

NVIDIA introduces Cosmos Policy, a post-trained control policy built on Cosmos Predict that treats robot actions, state, and value estimates as part of a unified world-modeling process. Reported results show strong benchmark performance (including SOTA on LIBERO and RoboCasa in their experiments), and the write-up is a useful look at where world foundation models are heading in practical robot manipulation. Read the technical post here.

MIT News - MIT engineers design an aerial microrobot that can fly as fast as a bumblebee

MIT researchers show a bee-sized flapping-wing microrobot with insect-like agility, powered by a two-stage AI control framework that combines robust planning with real-time learned policy execution. The system achieved major gains in speed and acceleration and completed repeated flips under disturbance, pointing toward future use in tight-space inspection, search-and-rescue, and other high-agility tasks. Read the research story here.

Robotics and AI Companies Funding

Pre-seed / Seed

Sherpas - $3.2M, Seed round, led by 1248 Holdings with AUA Capital and GoHub Ventures (Crunchbase). AI-native operating layer for wealth-management advisory workflows.
Potpie AI - $2.2M, Pre-seed round, led by Emergent Ventures with All In Capital, DeVC, and PointOne Capital (Tracxn). Knowledge-graph/context layer for AI coding agents in large codebases.
Qumis - $4.3M, Seed round (oversubscribed), led by MTech Capital with American Family Ventures and existing backers (Crunchbase). Attorney-trained AI for commercial insurance policy interpretation.
Plato - $14.5M, Seed round, led by Atomico with Cherry Ventures, Discovery Ventures, and D11Z (Crunchbase). Agentic sales/quoting automation for wholesale distributors on top of ERP systems.
Zenyard - Undisclosed, Pre-seed round, led by Mindset Ventures with TAU Ventures and angels (Crunchbase). AI reverse-engineering platform for security teams.
Mirai Tech - $10M, Seed round, led by Uncork Capital (Crunchbase). On-device inference runtime/capability layer for Apple Silicon.
CraftifAI - $3M, Seed round, led by Ankur Capital with IvyCap, Capital-A, and Antler (Crunchbase). GenAI platform for embedded software and edge/robotics engineering workflows.
Grotto AI - $10M, Seed round, led by ICONIQ with Asymmetric (Crunchbase). Real-time AI leasing copilot for multifamily revenue teams.
Reload - $2.275M, Pre-seed round, led by Anthemis with Zeal Capital, Plug and Play, and others (Crunchbase). "HRIS for AI employees" management platform with controls for agent fleets.
Rapidata - $8.5M, Series Seed round, co-led by Canaan and IA Ventures with Acequia and BlueYard (Crunchbase). Human-feedback infrastructure API for faster AI eval/RLHF loops.
Agaton - $10M, Seed round, co-led by Inception Fund and Alstin Capital (Crunchbase). AI platform extracting conversion/churn signals from customer-call behavior.
Sift Biosciences - $3.7M, Pre-seed round, co-led by Lifespan Vision Ventures and Freeflow Ventures (Crunchbase). AI-enabled immunotherapy discovery focused on "cold" tumors.
Ineffable Intelligence - $1B (reported target), Seed round, led by Sequoia Capital. David Silver's new London startup focused on experience-driven autonomous agents.
Breaker - $6M, Seed round, led by Bessemer Venture Partners with Main Sequence (Crunchbase). Autonomous-orchestration software for defense fleets across air/land/sea.
Kana - $15M, Seed round, led by Mayfield (Crunchbase). AI agents for media planning, campaign ops, and marketing workflow automation.

Series A

7Rivers - $5M, Series A round, led by Inoca Capital Partners (Crunchbase). Snowflake-first data modernization and GenAI implementation platform.
DG Matrix - $60M, Series A round, led by Engine Ventures with Helios Climate, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and others (Crunchbase). Multi-port solid-state transformer infrastructure for AI data-center and electrification power loads.
SportIQ - $6.2M total, Series A (two-part close), latest led by KB Partners (Crunchbase). Embedded AI basketball sensor platform for coaching, training, and officiating use cases.
Avantos.ai - $25M, Series A round, led by Bessemer with Guardian Life, SEI, and Vanguard (Crunchbase). AI-native operations platform for financial-services onboarding/servicing workflows.
Adronite - $5M, Series A round, led by Gatemore Capital Management (Crunchbase). Enterprise codebase-intelligence platform for architecture, security, and dependency reasoning.
happyhotel - EUR6.5M, Series A round, led by Reimann Investors VC with existing investors (Crunchbase). Autonomous commercial AI agent for hotel pricing and distribution.
Efficient Computer - $60M, Series A round, led by Triatomic Capital with Eclipse, USV, Toyota Ventures, and others (Crunchbase). Energy-efficient general-purpose processor architecture for AI/edge workloads.
Custom Surgical - EUR3.5M, Pre-Series A round, led by Ventech with ZEISS (Crunchbase). Ophthalmology platform turning analog slit lamps into AI-ready data hubs.
Dataro - $14.28M, Series A round, led by Blueprint Equity with Save the Children Global Ventures, Basis Set, and Reinventure (Crunchbase). AI fundraising-intelligence layer for nonprofit donor prediction and workflow execution.

Series B

AI2 Robotics - RMB1B+ (~$144M), Series B round at RMB10B+ valuation, backed by Baidu and CRRC (Crunchbase). Shenzhen embodied-AI robotics company accelerating commercialization and IPO positioning.
Eagle Wireless - $30M, Series B round, co-led by Asymmetric Capital Partners and The O.H.I.O. Fund (Crunchbase). U.S.-based cellular module/device supplier targeting trusted domestic 5G/IoT supply chains.
Onshore - $31M, Series B round, led by FPV Ventures with Vertex Ventures US, ADP Ventures, YC, and Restive. AI tax-credit platform focused on audit-ready R&D and incentive workflows.
Braintrust - $80M, Series B round (reported $800M post), led by ICONIQ with a16z, Greylock, and others (Crunchbase). Production AI observability/evals infrastructure for agentic applications.
Freeform - $67M, Series B round, with participation from Founders Fund, NVentures, and others (Crunchbase). AI-native metal additive manufacturing platform scaling autonomous laser factories.
Code Metal - $125M, Series B round at $1.25B valuation, led by Salesforce Ventures (Crunchbase). AI code translation plus formal verification for mission-critical modernization.
FYLD - $41M, Series B round, led by Energy Impact Partners with Partech and Ontario Teachers' (PitchBook). Frontline video-intelligence and risk-detection platform for critical infrastructure workforces.
Jump - $80M, Series B round, led by Insight Partners (Crunchbase). AI operating system for financial advisors (meeting intelligence, workflow orchestration, compliance trail).
Ownwell - $50M (30M equity + 20M debt), Series B round, led by Alpha Edison and Mercato with debt from Western Alliance Bank (Crunchbase). Consumer fintech for property-tax appeal and recurring-home-expense optimization.

Series C and beyond

Codoxo - $35M, Series C round (oversubscribed), led by CVS Health Ventures (Crunchbase). Pre-claim payment-integrity AI for healthcare payers.

Strategic / Growth / Other

Yendo - $200M, Debt commitment from i80 Group (after prior equity rounds). AI-enabled asset-backed credit-card platform for under-served consumers.
Monark Markets - $8.1M, Strategic round led by F-Prime with The Treasury, Commerce Ventures, and others (Crunchbase). Brokerage/wealth infrastructure for private-market access and lifecycle operations.
NANDO - EUR3.3M, Capital increase led by MAIA Ventures and CDP Venture Capital (Crunchbase). Computer-vision waste analytics platform used across 80+ organizations.
Lightworks - Up to $12M, Funding round led by Round13 Capital. Agentic AI control-plane and governance stack for regulated enterprises.
FancyAI - Undisclosed, Strategic investment led by The Shipyard (Crunchbase). Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) tooling for brand visibility in AI answers.
Selector - $32M, Growth round at $375M valuation, led by AVP with Ansa Capital and others (Crunchbase). AI-powered observability and root-cause analysis platform for hybrid networks.
Mecademic - CAD21M, Strategic funding led by Investissement Quebec with EDC and BDC (PitchBook). Precision micro-automation robotics company scaling global operations.
Ten63 Therapeutics - Undisclosed, Strategic extension from Chugai Venture Fund and Gates Foundation (Crunchbase). AI/quantum-chemistry drug-discovery platform targeting hard-to-drug proteins.
World Labs - $1B, Funding round with major strategic backing including Autodesk, NVIDIA, AMD, and Fidelity (Crunchbase). Spatial-intelligence startup building 3D world-understanding models.
SurrealDB - $23M, Series A extension (Series A now $38M; total $44M), with new backing from Chalfen Ventures and Begin Capital (Crunchbase). AI-native multi-model database stack for unified agent memory and data access.

Robotics and AI News

Battery Ventures closes Fund XV at $3.25B to back AI and software — Battery announced an oversubscribed $3.25 billion fund to invest from early stage through buyout across application software, AI/data infrastructure, developer tools, cybersecurity, and industrial tech in the U.S., Europe, and Israel. Pulse 2.0
China is trialing robotic police officers for traffic control — A report highlights humanoid/wheeled police robots in cities such as Wuhu, Chengdu, and Hangzhou, equipped with cameras, speakers, and signal integration for 24/7 street operations as part of a broader national robotics push. ECOticias
MIT/SMART unveil a brain-inspired controller for soft robots — Researchers introduced a general soft-robot control framework using "structural" and "plastic" synapses, enabling one-time learning plus real-time adaptation across tasks and disturbances while maintaining stability and safety. MIT News
DIC launches a $62M Physical AI investment initiative with Emerald — DIC says it will partner with Emerald Technology Ventures and build a Zurich-based investment arm to accelerate startup collaboration in sensors, wearables, robotics, and automation under its D2S strategy. Pulse 2.0
Google Gemini and Apple add music-focused generative AI features — Bloomberg reports Google is rolling out Gemini music generation (including lyric/instrumental 30-second tracks via DeepMind's Lyria 3), while Apple is also adding music-oriented generative AI capabilities. Bloomberg
Agility Robotics and Toyota Canada sign a commercial RaaS deal — Following a pilot, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada will deploy Agility's humanoid robot Digit in production, marking another high-profile industrial rollout of humanoid robots-as-a-service. Forbes
Adani plans a $100B AI-ready data center buildout by 2035 — Reuters reports (via Yahoo) that Adani will invest $100 billion in renewable-powered AI data centers, targeting massive scale-up and broader ecosystem effects across server manufacturing and cloud infrastructure in India. Reuters
Seaspan invests $1.5M in robotic blast/paint systems — Canada's Seaspan Shipyards awarded Confined Space Robotics a contract to develop semiautonomous systems for blasting, grinding, and spray coating, aimed at improving productivity, safety, and sustainability in shipbuilding. Shipping Telegraph
New York pulls proposed robotaxi expansion framework — Bloomberg reports Governor Kathy Hochul withdrew a budget proposal that would have enabled commercial AV pilots without onboard operators outside New York City, creating a setback for Waymo's near-term expansion plans in the state. Bloomberg
Waymo begins fully autonomous operations with its 6th-gen Driver — Waymo says its latest stack reduces cost while improving sensing and robustness, supports multiple vehicle platforms, and is intended to scale toward high-volume deployment from its Arizona factory network. Waymo Blog
Google introduces Gemini 3.1 Pro with major reasoning gains — VentureBeat reports Gemini 3.1 Pro posts strong benchmark improvements (including ARC-AGI-2) and aims to strengthen coding, multimodal, and long-horizon reasoning use cases at unchanged API pricing tiers. VentureBeat
Anthropic releases Sonnet 4.6 at the same price point as 4.5 — VentureBeat says Sonnet 4.6 delivers materially stronger coding, agentic, and long-context performance while keeping prior Sonnet pricing, positioning it as a cost-efficient model for high-volume enterprise deployments. VentureBeat

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