[ { "slug": "1x", "name": "1X", "domain": "1x.tech", "hq": "Moss, Norway and Palo Alto", "founded": "2014", "explainer": "1X sells NEO, a soft-bodied home humanoid, at $20,000 or $499 a month; its first year of production sold out in five days of preorders in October 2025. It signed a deal to put up to 10,000 units into EQT portfolio companies and was reported in September 2025 to be raising at $10B or more.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 100000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "date": "2024-01", "investors": [ "EQT Ventures", "Samsung NEXT" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techstartups.com/2025/09/24/norways-1x-raising-1b-at-10b-valuation-to-bring-humanoid-robot-neo-into-homes/", "date": "2025-09-24", "title": "Norway’s 1X raising $1B at $10B valuation to bring humanoid robot NEO into homes - Tech Startups", "publisher": "Tech Startups" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 1000000000.0, "kind": "funding round (reported talks)", "valuation_usd": 10000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2025-09", "note": "Reported target; not confirmed closed.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techstartups.com/2025/09/24/norways-1x-raising-1b-at-10b-valuation-to-bring-humanoid-robot-neo-into-homes/", "date": "2025-09-24", "title": "Norway’s 1X raising $1B at $10B valuation to bring humanoid robot NEO into homes - Tech Startups", "publisher": "Tech Startups" } ], "contested": true } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "NEO home humanoid; preorders sold out; EQT deal for 10,000 units.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/11/1x-struck-a-deal-to-send-its-home-humanoids-to-factories-and-warehouses/", "date": "2025-12-11", "title": "1X struck a deal to send its 'home' humanoids to factories and warehouses", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "NEO home humanoid.", "logo": "assets/logos/1x.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/11/1x-struck-a-deal-to-send-its-home-humanoids-to-factories-and-warehouses/", "date": "2025-12-11", "title": "1X struck a deal to send its 'home' humanoids to factories and warehouses", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "accelerated-understanding", "name": "Accelerated Understanding", "domain": "acceleratedunderstanding.com", "hq": "Pasadena", "founded": "2026", "explainer": "Anima Anandkumar and Benedikt Jenik came out of stealth on August 25, 2026 with a neural-operator model that takes five trillion data points per prompt and rolls physical systems forward in space and time. They had turned down an offer to front Bezos's Prometheus. Funding is undisclosed; compute partners supplied the clusters.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "Direct 4D physics rollouts on neural operators; 5T data points per prompt claimed. Out of stealth August 2026.", "from": "2026-08", "to": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://techstartups.com/2026/08/25/ai-founders-walked-away-from-bezos-backed-prometheus-now-theyre-building-physics-ai-to-model-the-universe/", "date": "2026-08-25", "title": "AI founders walked away from Bezos-backed Prometheus. Now they’re building physics AI to model the universe - Tech Startups", "publisher": "Tech Startups" } ], "strand": "simulator-first" } ], "summary": "Neural-operator physics model; out of stealth August 2026.", "logo": null, "logo_source": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://techstartups.com/2026/08/25/ai-founders-walked-away-from-bezos-backed-prometheus-now-theyre-building-physics-ai-to-model-the-universe/", "date": "2026-08-25", "title": "AI founders walked away from Bezos-backed Prometheus. Now they’re building physics AI to model the universe - Tech Startups", "publisher": "Tech Startups" } ] }, { "slug": "adaption-labs", "name": "Adaption Labs", "domain": "adaptionlabs.com", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2025", "explainer": "Founded by Sara Hooker and Sudip Roy after they left Cohere. Its thesis is that smaller models that adapt on the fly beat bigger frozen ones; it sells gradient-free learning that lets an agent correct itself without retraining. Emergence led a $50M seed in February 2026.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 50000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2026-02", "investors": [ "Emergence Capital", "Mozilla Ventures", "Fifty Years", "Threshold Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/02/04/adaption-labs-50-million-seed-funding-emergence-captial-sara-hooker-sudip-roy-ai-models-that-learn-on-the-fly/", "date": "2026-02-04", "title": "Adaption Labs secures $50 million seed round to build AI models that can change on the fly", "publisher": "Fortune" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "rl", "note": "Models that learn on the fly without retraining; $50M seed.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/02/04/adaption-labs-50-million-seed-funding-emergence-captial-sara-hooker-sudip-roy-ai-models-that-learn-on-the-fly/", "date": "2026-02-04", "title": "Adaption Labs secures $50 million seed round to build AI models that can change on the fly", "publisher": "Fortune" } ] } ], "summary": "Adaptive models over bigger static ones.", "logo": "assets/logos/adaption-labs.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/02/04/adaption-labs-50-million-seed-funding-emergence-captial-sara-hooker-sudip-roy-ai-models-that-learn-on-the-fly/", "date": "2026-02-04", "title": "Adaption Labs secures $50 million seed round to build AI models that can change on the fly", "publisher": "Fortune" } ] }, { "slug": "adaptyv", "name": "Adaptyv Bio", "domain": "adaptyvbio.com", "hq": "Lausanne", "founded": null, "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 40000000, "kind": "Series A", "date": "2026-08-26", "investors": [ "Highland Europe", "Ace Ventures", "ByFounders", "Y Combinator" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.startupticker.ch/en/news/adaptyv-raises-40m-to-build-automated-lab-for-agentic-biology", "date": "2026-08-26", "title": "Adaptyv raises $40M to build automated lab for agentic biology", "publisher": "Startupticker" }, { "url": "https://www.eu-startups.com/2026/08/lausanne-based-adaptyv-raises-e34-35-million-series-a-to-build-the-automated-lab-for-agentic-biology/", "date": "2026-08-26", "title": "Lausanne-based Adaptyv raises €34.35 million Series A to build the automated lab for agentic biology", "publisher": "EU-Startups" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "strand": "lab-in-the-loop", "note": "The automated wet lab that tests AI-designed proteins for everyone else", "primary": true, "from": null, "to": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.startupticker.ch/en/news/adaptyv-raises-40m-to-build-automated-lab-for-agentic-biology", "date": "2026-08-26", "title": "Adaptyv raises $40M to build automated lab for agentic biology", "publisher": "Startupticker" } ] } ], "summary": "Automated wet lab that validates AI-designed proteins; customers include Chai Discovery, Boltz, Roche and Novo Nordisk.", "explainer": "The picks and shovels of the lab-in-the-loop strand. Adaptyv does not design proteins; it runs the automated lab that tells a model whether its designs bind. Throughput grew more than fivefold in a year to over 100 customers, and in August 2026 the company published a run in which Claude-designed binders against 16 targets were tested there, with 354 of 1,320 designs binding. The $40M Series A, led by Highland Europe, funds a tripling of lab capacity and a London lab.", "logo": "assets/logos/adaptyv.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.startupticker.ch/en/news/adaptyv-raises-40m-to-build-automated-lab-for-agentic-biology", "date": "2026-08-26", "title": "Adaptyv raises $40M to build automated lab for agentic biology", "publisher": "Startupticker" } ] }, { "slug": "agibot", "name": "AgiBot", "domain": "agibot.com", "hq": "Shanghai", "founded": "2023-02", "explainer": "Founded by ex-Huawei engineer Peng Zhihui, AgiBot ships humanoids at volume in China and is preparing a Hong Kong IPO at a reported $6B.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Volume humanoid maker; Hong Kong IPO planned at ~$6B.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/edithyeung/2026/04/01/these-10-chinese-robotics-startups-are-winning-the-most-vc-funding/", "date": "2026-04-01", "title": "These 10 Chinese robotics startups are winning the most VC funding", "publisher": "Forbes" } ] } ], "summary": "Shanghai humanoid maker heading to Hong Kong.", "logo": "assets/logos/agibot.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/edithyeung/2026/04/01/these-10-chinese-robotics-startups-are-winning-the-most-vc-funding/", "date": "2026-04-01", "title": "These 10 Chinese robotics startups are winning the most VC funding", "publisher": "Forbes" } ] }, { "slug": "agility-robotics", "name": "Agility Robotics", "domain": "agilityrobotics.com", "hq": "Salem, Oregon", "founded": "2015", "explainer": "Agility's Digit is the humanoid with the most real warehouse hours, working for GXO and Amazon. It raised $400M at about $2.1B in 2025 and agreed in 2026 to go public through a merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI at $2.5B.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 150000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "date": "2022-04", "investors": [ "DCVC", "Playground Global", "Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.agilityrobotics.com/content/agility-robotics-raises-150m-series-b-led-by-dcvc-and-playground-global", "date": "2022-04-21", "title": "Agility Robotics raises $150M Series B led by DCVC and Playground Global", "publisher": "Agility Robotics" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 400000000.0, "kind": "Series C", "valuation_usd": 2120000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-03", "investors": [ "DCVC", "Playground Global", "Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund", "NVentures", "Sony Innovation Fund" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.geekwire.com/2025/agility-robotics-reportedly-raising-400m-for-humanoid-warehouse-robots/", "date": "2025-03-25", "title": "Agility Robotics reportedly raising $400M for humanoid warehouse robots", "publisher": "GeekWire" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 0, "kind": "spac (announced)", "valuation_usd": 2500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2026-06", "note": "Merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI; expected to close 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.briefs.co/news/agility-robotics-goes-public-at-2-5-billion-valuation/", "date": "2026-06-15", "title": "Agility Robotics goes public at $2.5 billion valuation", "publisher": "Briefs" } ], "contested": true } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Digit in warehouses (GXO, Amazon); SPAC listing announced 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.briefs.co/news/agility-robotics-goes-public-at-2-5-billion-valuation/", "date": "2026-06-15", "title": "Agility Robotics goes public at $2.5 billion valuation", "publisher": "Briefs" } ] } ], "summary": "Digit; the most deployed humanoid.", "logo": "assets/logos/agility-robotics.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.geekwire.com/2025/agility-robotics-reportedly-raising-400m-for-humanoid-warehouse-robots/", "date": "2025-03-25", "title": "Agility Robotics reportedly raising $400M for humanoid warehouse robots", "publisher": "GeekWire" } ] }, { "slug": "ai21", "name": "AI21 Labs", "domain": "ai21.com", "hq": "Tel Aviv", "founded": "2017", "explainer": "Israeli lab behind the Jamba models, which mix transformer and state-space layers. Raised $300M from Google and Nvidia in May 2025, for $636M in total.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 300000000.0, "kind": "Series D", "date": "2025-05", "investors": [ "Google", "Nvidia" ], "note": "Total raised $636M.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2025/05/11/ai21-labs-raises-300m-google-nvidia-expand-enterprise-ai-offerings/", "date": "2025-05-11", "title": "https://siliconangle.com/2025/05/11/ai21-labs-raises-300m-google-nvidia-expand-enterprise-ai-offerings/", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Jamba hybrid transformer/state-space models; $636M raised.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2025/05/11/ai21-labs-raises-300m-google-nvidia-expand-enterprise-ai-offerings/", "date": "2025-05-11", "title": "https://siliconangle.com/2025/05/11/ai21-labs-raises-300m-google-nvidia-expand-enterprise-ai-offerings/", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] } ], "summary": "Jamba models; Google and Nvidia backed.", "logo": "assets/logos/ai21.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2025/05/11/ai21-labs-raises-300m-google-nvidia-expand-enterprise-ai-offerings/", "date": "2025-05-11", "title": "https://siliconangle.com/2025/05/11/ai21-labs-raises-300m-google-nvidia-expand-enterprise-ai-offerings/", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] }, { "slug": "alibaba-qwen", "name": "Alibaba (Qwen)", "domain": "alibabacloud.com", "ticker": "NYSE:BABA", "hq": "Hangzhou", "explainer": "Qwen is Alibaba's open-weight model family and, by Hugging Face downloads, the most used open model line in the world, passing Llama in 2026. Alibaba treats models as demand generation for its cloud.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Largest open-weight family by downloads; passed Llama on Hugging Face in 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.wing.vc/content/chinas-open-weight-takeover", "date": "2026-05-01", "title": "China's open-weight takeover", "publisher": "Wing Venture Capital" } ] } ], "summary": "Largest open-weight family by downloads.", "logo": null, "logo_source": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.wing.vc/content/chinas-open-weight-takeover", "date": "2026-05-01", "title": "China's open-weight takeover", "publisher": "Wing Venture Capital" } ] }, { "slug": "amazon-agi-lab", "name": "Amazon AGI Lab", "domain": "amazon.science", "ticker": "NASDAQ:AMZN", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2024-12", "explainer": "Amazon formed a San Francisco lab under Adept co-founder David Luan in December 2024 to build agents on its Nova models. Luan left in February 2026. Amazon also employs the Covariant founders on robotics.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Nova models and Nova Act agents; lab head David Luan left February 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/09/amazon-forms-a-new-ai-agent-focused-lab-led-by-adept-co-founder/", "date": "2024-12-09", "title": "Amazon forms an AI agent-focused lab led by Adept's co-founder", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/24/head-of-amazons-agi-lab-is-leaving-the-company.html", "date": "2026-02-24", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] }, { "camp": "robot", "note": "Hired the Covariant founders in 2024 for warehouse robot learning.", "primary": false, "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/31/amazon-hires-the-founders-of-robotics-ai-startup-covariant/", "date": "2024-08-31", "title": "Amazon hires the founders of AI robotics startup Covariant", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Nova models and agents; Covariant team for robots.", "logo": "assets/logos/amazon-agi-lab.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/09/amazon-forms-a-new-ai-agent-focused-lab-led-by-adept-co-founder/", "date": "2024-12-09", "title": "Amazon forms an AI agent-focused lab led by Adept's co-founder", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "ami-labs", "name": "AMI Labs", "domain": "amilabs.xyz", "hq": "Paris", "founded": "2025-12", "explainer": "Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs is LeCun's vehicle for the JEPA program he ran at Meta: world models that predict in an abstract latent space instead of generating pixels or tokens. It raised a $1.03B seed at a $3.5B pre-money valuation in March 2026, the largest seed round in Europe, and has no product yet.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 1030000000.0, "kind": "seed", "valuation_usd": 3500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "pre-money", "date": "2026-03", "investors": [ "Cathay Innovation", "Greycroft", "Hiro Capital", "HV Capital", "Bezos Expeditions", "Nvidia", "Samsung", "Temasek", "Toyota Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/09/yann-lecuns-ami-labs-raises-1-03-billion-to-build-world-models/", "date": "2026-03-09", "title": "TechCrunch", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "JEPA world models. $1.03B seed at $3.5B pre, March 2026, no product yet.", "from": "2025-12", "to": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.techcrunch.com/2026/01/23/whos-behind-ami-labs-yann-lecuns-world-model-startup/", "date": "2026-01-23", "title": "TechCrunch", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/09/yann-lecuns-ami-labs-raises-1-03-billion-to-build-world-models/", "date": "2026-03-09", "title": "TechCrunch", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Machine_Intelligence_Labs", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] } ], "summary": "Paris. $1.03B seed at $3.5B pre, March 2026, no product yet.", "logo": "assets/logos/ami-labs.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.techcrunch.com/2026/01/23/whos-behind-ami-labs-yann-lecuns-world-model-startup/", "date": "2026-01-23", "title": "TechCrunch", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/22/1131661/yann-lecuns-new-venture-ami-labs/", "date": "2026-01-22", "title": "Yann LeCun's new venture is a contrarian bet against large language models | MIT Technology Review", "publisher": "MIT Technology Review" } ] }, { "slug": "amii", "name": "Amii / University of Alberta", "domain": "amii.ca", "hq": "Edmonton", "founded": "2002", "explainer": "The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute and the University of Alberta are the home of the Alberta Plan, the twelve-step research program written by Sutton, Bowling and Pilarski for an agent that learns continually from experience.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "rl", "note": "Home of the Alberta Plan.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.amii.ca/people/michael-bowling", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Michael Bowling, Amii profile", "publisher": "Amii" } ] } ], "summary": "Home of the Alberta Plan.", "logo": "assets/logos/amii.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [] }, { "slug": "anthropic", "name": "Anthropic", "domain": "anthropic.com", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2021-01", "explainer": "Anthropic builds the Claude models and is the purest large-scale bet on next-token prediction plus post-training. It pairs that with interpretability and a Responsible Scaling Policy. In May 2026 it raised $65B at a $965B valuation and filed confidentially for an IPO on June 1.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 450000000.0, "kind": "Series C", "date": "2023-05", "investors": [ "Spark Capital", "Google", "Salesforce Ventures", "Zoom Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/23/anthropic-raises-350m-to-build-next-gen-ai-assistants/", "date": "2023-05-23", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/23/anthropic-raises-350m-to-build-next-gen-ai-assistants/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 4000000000.0, "kind": "strategic investment", "date": "2023-09", "investors": [ "Amazon" ], "note": "Up to $4B; $1.25B initially, later increased to $8B in total.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-aws-anthropic-ai", "date": "2023-09-25", "title": "Amazon and Anthropic announce strategic collaboration", "publisher": "Amazon" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 3500000000.0, "kind": "Series E", "valuation_usd": 61500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-03", "investors": [ "Lightspeed" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-raises-series-e-at-usd61-5b-post-money-valuation", "date": "2025-03-03", "title": "Anthropic raises Series E at $61.5B post-money valuation", "publisher": "Anthropic" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 13000000000.0, "kind": "Series F", "valuation_usd": 183000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-09", "investors": [ "ICONIQ", "Fidelity", "Lightspeed" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-raises-series-f-at-usd183b-post-money-valuation", "date": "2025-09-02", "title": "Anthropic raises $13B Series F at $183B post-money valuation", "publisher": "Anthropic" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 65000000000.0, "kind": "Series H", "valuation_usd": 965000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-05", "sources": [ { "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/06/01/anthropic-confidentially-files-ipo-965-billion-valuation/", "date": "2026-06-01", "title": "Anthropic confidentially files for IPO after a $965 billion valuation", "publisher": "Fortune" }, { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/01/anthropic-files-to-go-public/", "date": "2026-06-01", "title": "Anthropic files to go public", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 0, "kind": "ipo", "date": "2026-10", "valuation_usd": 2000000000000, "valuation_kind": "reported", "contested": true, "note": "Reported target for an October 2026 listing; pitching pushed to mid-October per later reports. Not priced.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/08/13/anthropic-ipo-2-trillion-october-largest-ever-spacex/", "date": "2026-08-13", "title": "Anthropic reportedly plans a $2 trillion IPO in October, the largest ever", "publisher": "Fortune" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Claude. Pure camp 1 plus safety and interpretability. Filed for IPO June 2026; hired Karpathy and Jumper the same spring.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/01/anthropic-files-to-go-public/", "date": "2026-06-01", "title": "Anthropic files to go public", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/openai-co-founder-andrej-karpathy-joins-anthropics-pre-training-team/", "date": "2026-05-19", "title": "OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy joins Anthropic's pre-training team", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Claude. Pure camp 1 plus safety and interpretability.", "logo": "assets/logos/anthropic.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/01/anthropic-files-to-go-public/", "date": "2026-06-01", "title": "Anthropic files to go public", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ], "status_note": "Confidential IPO filing announced 2026-06-08; listing reported for October 2026 at a targeted valuation near $2T." }, { "slug": "apptronik", "name": "Apptronik", "domain": "apptronik.com", "hq": "Austin", "founded": "2016", "explainer": "Apptronik's Apollo humanoid came out of a decade of NASA-linked robotics work at UT Austin. Google, Mercedes-Benz and B Capital led a $520M Series A extension in February 2026 at more than $5.5B, taking the Series A above $935M.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 350000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "date": "2025-02", "investors": [ "B Capital", "Capital Factory", "Google" ], "note": "Later upsized to $403M with Mercedes-Benz, ARK and others.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/13/apptronik-raises-350m-to-build-humanoid-robots-with-help-from-google/", "date": "2025-02-13", "title": "Apptronik, which makes humanoid robots, raises $350M as category heats up", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 520000000.0, "kind": "Series A extension", "valuation_usd": 5500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-02", "investors": [ "B Capital", "Google", "Mercedes-Benz", "PEAK6", "AT&T Ventures", "John Deere", "Qatar Investment Authority" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/apptronik-raises-520-million-at-5-billion-valuation-for-apollo-robot.html", "date": "2026-02-11", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" }, { "url": "https://apptronik.com/news-collection/apptronik-closes-over-935-million-series-a", "date": "2026-02-11", "title": "Apptronik closes over $935 million Series A", "publisher": "Apptronik" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Apollo humanoid; Google and Mercedes as investors and customers.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/apptronik-raises-520-million-at-5-billion-valuation-for-apollo-robot.html", "date": "2026-02-11", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] } ], "summary": "Apollo humanoid; $5.5B.", "logo": "assets/logos/apptronik.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://apptronik.com/news-collection/apptronik-closes-over-935-million-series-a", "date": "2026-02-11", "title": "Apptronik closes over $935 million Series A", "publisher": "Apptronik" } ] }, { "slug": "arc-prize", "name": "ARC Prize Foundation", "domain": "arcprize.org", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2024-06", "explainer": "The nonprofit that runs ARC-AGI, the benchmark built to resist memorization. ARC-AGI-2's best verified 2025 result was 54% from Poetiq's refinement loop over Gemini 3; ARC-AGI-3, launched in 2026, is interactive and the first milestone winner scored about 1.2%.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "The benchmark camp 1 keeps failing to close. ARC-AGI-3 (interactive) launched 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://arcprize.org/blog/arc-prize-2025-results-analysis", "date": "2025-12-05", "title": "ARC Prize 2025 results and analysis", "publisher": "ARC Prize" }, { "url": "https://arcprize.org/blog/arc-prize-2026-milestone-1", "date": "2026-07-06", "title": "ARC Prize 2026: ARC-AGI-3 Milestone Prize #1", "publisher": "ARC Prize" } ] } ], "summary": "The benchmark camp 1 keeps failing to close.", "logo": null, "logo_source": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://arcprize.org/blog/arc-prize-2025-results-analysis", "date": "2025-12-05", "title": "ARC Prize 2025 results and analysis", "publisher": "ARC Prize" } ] }, { "slug": "baidu", "name": "Baidu (ERNIE)", "domain": "baidu.com", "ticker": "NASDAQ:BIDU", "hq": "Beijing", "explainer": "Baidu open-sourced parts of ERNIE 4.5 in mid-2025 but kept ERNIE 5.0 and 5.1 hosted-only.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "ERNIE 4.5 open-sourced 2025; ERNIE 5.x hosted-only.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://technode.com/2025/07/01/baidu-open-sources-ernie-4-5-series-models-including-multimodal-moe-architecture/", "date": "2025-07-01", "title": "Baidu open-sources ERNIE 4.5 series models, including multimodal MoE architecture · TechNode", "publisher": "TechNode" } ] } ], "summary": "ERNIE models.", "logo": "assets/logos/baidu.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://technode.com/2025/07/01/baidu-open-sources-ernie-4-5-series-models-including-multimodal-moe-architecture/", "date": "2025-07-01", "title": "Baidu open-sources ERNIE 4.5 series models, including multimodal MoE architecture · TechNode", "publisher": "TechNode" } ] }, { "slug": "basis", "name": "Basis", "domain": "basis.ai", "hq": "New York", "founded": "2022", "explainer": "A nonprofit research institute founded by Zenna Tavares, Emily Mackevicius and Eli Bingham. Builds open-source probabilistic-programming and reasoning systems and publishes on ARC and on adaptive world models (AutumnBench).", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Nonprofit; probabilistic programs and causal reasoning; ARC work.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.basis.ai/about/", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Basis | About", "publisher": "Basis" } ] } ], "summary": "Nonprofit for probabilistic reasoning.", "logo": "assets/logos/basis.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.basis.ai/about/", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Basis | About", "publisher": "Basis" } ] }, { "slug": "boston-dynamics", "name": "Boston Dynamics", "domain": "bostondynamics.com", "hq": "Waltham, MA", "founded": "1992", "explainer": "The company behind Atlas and Spot, owned by Hyundai. Its next humanoid runs on Google DeepMind models, announced in January 2026.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Atlas and Spot; next-generation humanoid uses Google DeepMind models.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/05/boston-dynamicss-next-gen-humanoid-robot-will-have-google-deepmind-dna/", "date": "2026-01-05", "title": "Boston Dynamics' next-gen humanoid robot will have Google DeepMind DNA", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Atlas and Spot; DeepMind-powered next Atlas.", "logo": "assets/logos/boston-dynamics.jpg", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/05/boston-dynamicss-next-gen-humanoid-robot-will-have-google-deepmind-dna/", "date": "2026-01-05", "title": "Boston Dynamics' next-gen humanoid robot will have Google DeepMind DNA", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "brainchip", "name": "BrainChip", "domain": "brainchip.com", "ticker": "ASX:BRN", "hq": "Sydney and Laguna Hills", "founded": "2004", "explainer": "A listed neuromorphic-chip company. Its Akida processors do event-based, on-chip learning at microwatt power for edge sensing; in 2026 it put Akida on an FPGA cloud and bundled it with IBM's workload scheduler.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Akida neuromorphic processors; the listed pure play in brain-inspired chips.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2026/08/21/brainchip-launches-symphony-community-akida-bundle-for-ibms-workload-management-solution/104376/", "date": "2026-08-21", "title": "https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2026/08/21/brainchip-launches-symphony-community-akida-bundle-for-ibms-workload-management-solution/10", "publisher": "Robotics and Automation News" } ] } ], "summary": "Listed neuromorphic chip maker.", "logo": "assets/logos/brainchip.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2026/08/21/brainchip-launches-symphony-community-akida-bundle-for-ibms-workload-management-solution/104376/", "date": "2026-08-21", "title": "https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2026/08/21/brainchip-launches-symphony-community-akida-bundle-for-ibms-workload-management-solution/10", "publisher": "Robotics and Automation News" } ] }, { "slug": "bytedance-seed", "name": "ByteDance Seed", "domain": "seed.bytedance.com", "hq": "Beijing", "explainer": "Seed is ByteDance's model group. Its Doubao models are the volume leader in China and among the cheapest capable models anywhere, sold mostly as an API rather than open weights.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Doubao / Seed models: volume leader in China, mostly API not open weights.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.wing.vc/content/chinas-open-weight-takeover", "date": "2026-05-01", "title": "China's open-weight takeover", "publisher": "Wing Venture Capital" } ] } ], "summary": "Doubao models; China volume leader.", "logo": "assets/logos/bytedance-seed.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.wing.vc/content/chinas-open-weight-takeover", "date": "2026-05-01", "title": "China's open-weight takeover", "publisher": "Wing Venture Capital" } ] }, { "slug": "cartesia", "name": "Cartesia", "domain": "cartesia.ai", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2023", "explainer": "Founded by Albert Gu and Karan Goel out of the Stanford lab where Mamba was written. The bet is that state-space models, which keep a fixed-size state instead of attending over every past token, are the right substrate for anything real-time or on-device. The product is voice (Sonic), but the research line is the architecture. A $100M round was widely reported in October 2025 alongside Sonic-3; the company has not published an announcement, so it is not counted here.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 22000000, "kind": "seed", "date": "2024-12-12", "investors": [ "Index Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.indexventures.com/perspectives/building-the-next-generation-of-real-time-ai-models-our-investment-in-cartesia/", "date": "2024-12-12", "title": "Building the next generation of real-time AI models: our investment in Cartesia", "publisher": "Index Ventures" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 64000000, "kind": "Series A", "date": "2025-03-11", "investors": [ "Kleiner Perkins", "Index Ventures", "Lightspeed" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cartesia.ai/blog/series-a", "date": "2025-03-11", "title": "Series A and the future of voice AI", "publisher": "Cartesia" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "State-space models instead of attention; the Mamba line commercialized", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cartesia.ai/blog/series-a", "date": "2025-03-11", "title": "Series A and the future of voice AI", "publisher": "Cartesia" }, { "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.00752", "date": "2023-12-01", "title": "Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces", "publisher": "arXiv" } ] } ], "summary": "State-space models (the Mamba line) in production, sold as real-time voice.", "logo": "assets/logos/cartesia.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cartesia.ai/blog/series-a", "date": "2025-03-11", "title": "Series A and the future of voice AI", "publisher": "Cartesia" } ] }, { "slug": "chai-discovery", "name": "Chai Discovery", "domain": "chaidiscovery.com", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2024", "explainer": "Builds molecular-structure foundation models (Chai-1, Chai-2) and licenses them rather than running a drug pipeline. Went from a $30M seed in September 2024 to a $400M Series C at $3.8B in July 2026, four rounds in under two years.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 30000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2024-09", "investors": [ "Thrive Capital", "OpenAI", "Dimension Capital" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-09/openai-thrive-capital-back-six-month-old-ai-drug-discovery-startup", "date": "2024-09-09", "title": "Chai Discovery gets OpenAI, Thrive Capital backing", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 70000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "date": "2025-08", "investors": [ "Menlo Ventures", "DST Global", "DCVC", "Thrive Capital", "OpenAI" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2025/08/07/chai-discovery-raises-70m-build-molecular-discovery-foundation-ai-models/", "date": "2025-08-07", "title": "Chai Discovery raises $70M to build molecular discovery foundation AI models", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 130000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "date": "2025-12", "note": "Total raised about $230M across three rounds.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.owlposting.com/p/the-optimistic-case-for-protein-foundation-193", "date": "2026-01-15", "title": "The optimistic case for protein foundation model companies", "publisher": "Owl Posting" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 400000000.0, "kind": "Series C", "valuation_usd": 3800000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-07", "sources": [ { "url": "https://thenextweb.com/news/chai-discovery-400m-series-c-ai-drug-discovery", "date": "2026-07-15", "title": "Chai Discovery raises $400M at $3.8bn as AI drug discovery booms", "publisher": "The Next Web" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "Molecular structure models, model-first rather than pipeline-first.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.owlposting.com/p/the-optimistic-case-for-protein-foundation-193", "date": "2026-01-15", "title": "The optimistic case for protein foundation model companies", "publisher": "Owl Posting" } ], "strand": "lab-in-the-loop" } ], "summary": "Molecular structure models; $3.8B after four rounds.", "logo": "assets/logos/chai-discovery.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.owlposting.com/p/the-optimistic-case-for-protein-foundation-193", "date": "2026-01-15", "title": "The optimistic case for protein foundation model companies", "publisher": "Owl Posting" } ] }, { "slug": "cohere", "name": "Cohere", "domain": "cohere.com", "hq": "Toronto", "founded": "2019", "explainer": "Cohere sells enterprise and sovereign models rather than a consumer chatbot. It reached about $240M in annual recurring revenue in 2025 at a $7B valuation and has said it hopes to list soon, but had not filed as of mid-2026. In April 2026 it agreed to merge with Germany's Aleph Alpha at a combined value of about $20B, with Schwarz Group putting $600M into its Series E.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 270000000.0, "kind": "Series C", "valuation_usd": 2200000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2023-06", "investors": [ "Inovia Capital", "Nvidia", "Oracle", "Salesforce Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://betakit.com/cohere-announces-270-million-series-c-from-inovia-nvidia-oracle-salesforce/", "date": "2023-06-08", "title": "Cohere announces $270-million USD Series C from Inovia, Nvidia, Oracle, Salesforce", "publisher": "BetaKit" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 500000000.0, "kind": "Series D", "valuation_usd": 5500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2024-07", "investors": [ "PSP Investments", "Cisco", "Fujitsu", "AMD Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://betakit.com/cohere-series-d-tops-out-at-500-million-raised-at-5-5-billion-valuation/", "date": "2024-07-22", "title": "Cohere Series D hits $500 million USD raised at $5.5-billion valuation", "publisher": "BetaKit" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 500000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 6800000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-08", "investors": [ "Nvidia", "Salesforce Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/13/ai-startup-cohere-revenue-ipo.html", "date": "2026-02-13", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 600000000.0, "kind": "Series E (announced)", "valuation_usd": 20000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2026-04", "investors": [ "Schwarz Group" ], "note": "Announced with the Aleph Alpha merger; expected to close later in 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/24/cohere-acquires-merges-with-german-based-startup-to-create-a-transatlantic-ai-powerhouse/", "date": "2026-04-24", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/24/cohere-acquires-merges-with-german-based-startup-to-create-a-transatlantic-ai-powerhouse/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/24/cohere-aleph-alpha-germany-ai-europe-expansion.html", "date": "2026-04-24", "title": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/24/cohere-aleph-alpha-germany-ai-europe-expansion.html", "publisher": "CNBC" } ], "contested": true } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Enterprise and sovereign models; merging with Aleph Alpha at ~$20B.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/13/ai-startup-cohere-revenue-ipo.html", "date": "2026-02-13", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" }, { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/24/cohere-acquires-merges-with-german-based-startup-to-create-a-transatlantic-ai-powerhouse/", "date": "2026-04-24", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/24/cohere-acquires-merges-with-german-based-startup-to-create-a-transatlantic-ai-powerhouse/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Enterprise models; IPO candidate.", "logo": "assets/logos/cohere.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/13/ai-startup-cohere-revenue-ipo.html", "date": "2026-02-13", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] }, { "slug": "cortical-labs", "name": "Cortical Labs", "domain": "corticallabs.com", "hq": "Melbourne", "founded": "2019", "explainer": "Grows human neurons on chips and sells the result: the CL1 biological computer, launched in March 2025 at $35,000, and a cloud service on top. The most literal 'different kind of computer' in the atlas.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 10000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "date": "2025-04", "investors": [ "Horizons Ventures", "Blackbird Ventures", "In-Q-Tel" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_Labs", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Cortical Labs", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "CL1: computing on living neurons.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_Labs", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Cortical Labs", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] } ], "summary": "Living-neuron computers.", "logo": null, "logo_source": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_Labs", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Cortical Labs", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] }, { "slug": "covariant", "name": "Covariant", "domain": "covariant.ai", "status": "acquired", "status_note": "Founders and about a quarter of staff hired by Amazon in August 2024, with a license to its models.", "hq": "Emeryville, California", "founded": "2017", "explainer": "Covariant built foundation models for warehouse picking robots and raised $222M by 2023. In August 2024 Amazon hired its founders and licensed its models in a reverse acquihire.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 75000000.0, "kind": "Series C extension", "date": "2023-04", "investors": [ "Radical Ventures", "Index Ventures" ], "note": "Total raised $222M.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/04/covariants-robotic-picking-at-nabs-another-75m/", "date": "2023-04-04", "title": "Covariant's robotic picking AI nabs another $75M", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Robot foundation models for warehouse picking; team hired by Amazon, August 2024.", "from": null, "to": "2024-08", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/31/amazon-hires-the-founders-of-robotics-ai-startup-covariant/", "date": "2024-08-31", "title": "Amazon hires the founders of AI robotics startup Covariant", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Warehouse robot models; acquihired by Amazon.", "logo": null, "logo_source": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/31/amazon-hires-the-founders-of-robotics-ai-startup-covariant/", "date": "2024-08-31", "title": "Amazon hires the founders of AI robotics startup Covariant", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "cuspai", "name": "CuspAI", "domain": "cusp.ai", "hq": "Cambridge, UK", "founded": "2024", "explainer": "CuspAI, co-founded by Max Welling, generates and screens materials for carbon capture and other industrial uses. It raised a $30M seed in 2024, a $100M Series A in September 2025, and $450M in July 2026.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 30000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2024-06", "investors": [ "Hoxton Ventures", "Basis Set Ventures", "Lightspeed" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.finsmes.com/2024/06/cuspai-raises-30m-in-seed-funding.html", "date": "2024-06-18", "title": "CuspAI raises $30M in seed funding", "publisher": "FinSMEs" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 100000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "valuation_usd": 500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2025-09", "investors": [ "NEA", "Temasek", "NVentures", "Samsung Ventures", "Hyundai" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-chemistry-startup-cuspai-raises-100000749.html", "date": "2025-09-10", "title": "AI for chemistry startup CuspAI raises $100 million", "publisher": "Reuters via Yahoo Finance" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 450000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "date": "2026-07", "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/07/20/ai-materials-science-startup-cuspai-raises-450m-funding/", "date": "2026-07-20", "title": "AI materials science startup CuspAI raises $450M in funding", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "Generative materials for carbon capture; $450M in July 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/07/20/ai-materials-science-startup-cuspai-raises-450m-funding/", "date": "2026-07-20", "title": "AI materials science startup CuspAI raises $450M in funding", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ], "strand": "lab-in-the-loop" } ], "summary": "Generative materials for carbon capture.", "logo": "assets/logos/cuspai.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/07/20/ai-materials-science-startup-cuspai-raises-450m-funding/", "date": "2026-07-20", "title": "AI materials science startup CuspAI raises $450M in funding", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] }, { "slug": "decart", "name": "Decart", "domain": "decart.ai", "hq": "Tel Aviv and San Francisco", "founded": "2023", "explainer": "Decart builds real-time video world models (Oasis, a playable Minecraft-like model, then Lucy) on top of its own inference stack. It raised $300M at about $4B in May 2026 and in August Fortune reported Anthropic was in talks to buy it for $6B.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 21000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2024-10", "investors": [ "Sequoia", "Zeev Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rj6ocgbb1x", "date": "2024-10-31", "title": "Sequoia-backed Decart raises $21M in seed funding", "publisher": "CTech" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 32000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "valuation_usd": 500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2024-12", "investors": [ "Benchmark", "Sequoia", "Zeev Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/19/decart-adds-another-32m-at-a-500m-valuation/", "date": "2024-12-19", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/19/decart-adds-another-32m-at-a-500m-valuation/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 300000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "valuation_usd": 4000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-05", "investors": [ "Radical Ventures", "Nvidia", "Sequoia", "Benchmark", "Toyota Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/05/18/decart-raises-300m-ai-optimization-software-world-models/", "date": "2026-05-18", "title": "Decart raises $300M for its AI optimization software, world models", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "Real-time playable world models (Oasis, Lucy); driving simulation. Reported Anthropic acquisition talks, August 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/05/18/decart-raises-300m-ai-optimization-software-world-models/", "date": "2026-05-18", "title": "Decart raises $300M for its AI optimization software, world models", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" }, { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/10/decarts-new-world-model-can-simulate-hours-of-photorealistic-driving-with-some-caveats/", "date": "2026-06-10", "title": "Decart's new world model can simulate hours of photorealistic driving, with some caveats", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/08/13/anthropic-said-in-talks-to-buy-startup-decart-for-6-billion/", "date": "2026-08-13", "title": "Anthropic said in talks to buy startup Decart for $6 billion", "publisher": "Fortune" } ], "contested": true } ], "summary": "Real-time world models; reported $6B Anthropic talks.", "logo": "assets/logos/decart.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/05/18/decart-raises-300m-ai-optimization-software-world-models/", "date": "2026-05-18", "title": "Decart raises $300M for its AI optimization software, world models", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] }, { "slug": "deepseek", "name": "DeepSeek", "domain": "deepseek.com", "hq": "Hangzhou", "founded": "2023-07", "explainer": "DeepSeek was bootstrapped by the quant fund High-Flyer until June 2026, when it took its first outside money: about $7.4B at a valuation near $50B, with founder Liang Wenfeng putting in the largest check and investors buying into a partnership with no voting rights. Its R1 paper made reinforcement learning on verifiable rewards the standard recipe for reasoning models.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 7400000000.0, "kind": "first external round", "valuation_usd": 50000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2026-06", "investors": [ "Liang Wenfeng", "Tencent", "CATL", "JD.com", "NetEase", "IDG Capital", "National AI Industry Investment Fund" ], "note": "Reported at 338-400B yuan valuation; LP structure with five-year lock-up.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://the-decoder.com/deepseek-takes-outside-money-for-the-first-time-at-a-50-billion-valuation/", "date": "2026-06-16", "title": "DeepSeek takes outside money for the first time at a $50 billion valuation", "publisher": "The Decoder" }, { "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/anishasircar/2026/06/17/deepseek-just-raised-74-billion-heres-the-catch/", "date": "2026-06-17", "title": "DeepSeek just raised $7.4 billion. Here's the catch.", "publisher": "Forbes" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Open weights, efficiency, RL-first reasoning. First outside round June 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://the-decoder.com/deepseek-takes-outside-money-for-the-first-time-at-a-50-billion-valuation/", "date": "2026-06-16", "title": "DeepSeek takes outside money for the first time at a $50 billion valuation", "publisher": "The Decoder" } ] } ], "summary": "Open weights, efficiency, RL-first reasoning.", "logo": "assets/logos/deepseek.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://the-decoder.com/deepseek-takes-outside-money-for-the-first-time-at-a-50-billion-valuation/", "date": "2026-06-16", "title": "DeepSeek takes outside money for the first time at a $50 billion valuation", "publisher": "The Decoder" } ] }, { "slug": "dyna-robotics", "name": "Dyna Robotics", "domain": "dyna.co", "hq": "Redwood City", "founded": "2024", "explainer": "Dyna builds a two-arm robot on a wheeled base and deploys it on repetitive commercial tasks such as laundry folding. It raised $120M at more than $600M in September 2025 with Nvidia, Amazon and Salesforce participating.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 120000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "valuation_usd": 600000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-09", "investors": [ "CRV", "First Round Capital", "RoboStrategy", "Nvidia", "Amazon", "Salesforce" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-15/dyna-robotics-raises-120-million-in-funding-from-nvidia-amazon", "date": "2025-09-15", "title": "Dyna Robotics raises $120 million in funding from Nvidia, Amazon", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Task-specific dexterity, deployed in laundries; $120M.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-15/dyna-robotics-raises-120-million-in-funding-from-nvidia-amazon", "date": "2025-09-15", "title": "Dyna Robotics raises $120 million in funding from Nvidia, Amazon", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ] } ], "summary": "Task-specific dexterity, deployed in laundries.", "logo": "assets/logos/dyna-robotics.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-15/dyna-robotics-raises-120-million-in-funding-from-nvidia-amazon", "date": "2025-09-15", "title": "Dyna Robotics raises $120 million in funding from Nvidia, Amazon", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ] }, { "slug": "edison-scientific", "name": "Edison Scientific", "domain": "edisonscientific.com", "parent": "futurehouse", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2025-11", "explainer": "The for-profit spin-out of FutureHouse. Its Kosmos agent runs literature search, data analysis and hypothesis generation in a loop. Raised a $70M seed in December 2025 led by Triatomic and Spark.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 70000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2025-12", "investors": [ "Triatomic Capital", "Spark Capital", "Pillar VC", "Susa Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-18/ai-startup-edison-raises-70-million-to-speed-up-scientific-research", "date": "2025-12-18", "title": "AI startup Edison raises $70 million to speed up scientific research", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "Kosmos AI scientist; $70M seed.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.hpcwire.com/aiwire/2025/11/07/futurehouse-spins-out-edison-scientific-launches-kosmos-ai-for-research/", "date": "2025-11-07", "title": "FutureHouse spins out Edison Scientific, launches Kosmos AI for research", "publisher": "AIwire" }, { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-18/ai-startup-edison-raises-70-million-to-speed-up-scientific-research", "date": "2025-12-18", "title": "AI startup Edison raises $70 million to speed up scientific research", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ], "strand": "lab-in-the-loop" } ], "summary": "FutureHouse spin-out; Kosmos.", "logo": "assets/logos/edison-scientific.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.hpcwire.com/aiwire/2025/11/07/futurehouse-spins-out-edison-scientific-launches-kosmos-ai-for-research/", "date": "2025-11-07", "title": "FutureHouse spins out Edison Scientific, launches Kosmos AI for research", "publisher": "AIwire" } ] }, { "slug": "essential-ai", "name": "Essential AI", "domain": "essential.ai", "status": "acquired", "status_note": "Team acquihired by Nvidia in June 2026; Vaswani now works on Nemotron open models.", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2023", "explainer": "Founded by two transformer co-authors, Ashish Vaswani and Niki Parmar. Raised $175M at $1B in August 2025, then was acquihired by Nvidia in June 2026 after struggling to raise more.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 175000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "valuation_usd": 1000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-08", "investors": [ "Lightspeed", "Thrive Capital" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashish_Vaswani", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Ashish Vaswani", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Open models from transformer co-authors; acquihired by Nvidia, June 2026.", "from": null, "to": "2026-06", "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashish_Vaswani", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Ashish Vaswani", "publisher": "Wikipedia" }, { "url": "https://www.axios.com/2026/06/23/ai-lab-agi-google-deepmind-departures", "date": "2026-06-23", "title": "AI lab musical chairs hits Google the hardest", "publisher": "Axios" } ] } ], "summary": "Acqui-hired by Nvidia in 2026.", "logo": "assets/logos/essential-ai.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashish_Vaswani", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Ashish Vaswani", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] }, { "slug": "evolutionaryscale", "name": "EvolutionaryScale", "domain": "evolutionaryscale.ai", "status": "acquired", "status_note": "The team joined the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in a strategic transaction announced 2025-11-06; co-founder Alex Rives became Biohub's head of science. The startup effectively ended.", "hq": "New York", "founded": "2023", "explainer": "Built ESM3, a 98-billion-parameter protein language model, with a $142M seed led by Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross and Lux in 2024. Acquired by the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in November 2025.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 142000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2024-06", "investors": [ "Nat Friedman", "Daniel Gross", "Lux Capital", "Amazon", "NVentures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/25/evolutionaryscale-backed-by-amazon-and-nvidia-raises-142m-for-protein-generating-ai/", "date": "2024-06-25", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/25/evolutionaryscale-backed-by-amazon-and-nvidia-raises-142m-for-protein-generating-ai/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "ESM3 protein language model; acquired by CZ Biohub, November 2025.", "from": null, "to": "2025-11", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/25/evolutionaryscale-backed-by-amazon-and-nvidia-raises-142m-for-protein-generating-ai/", "date": "2024-06-25", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/25/evolutionaryscale-backed-by-amazon-and-nvidia-raises-142m-for-protein-generating-ai/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://genomely.substack.com/p/chan-zuckerberg-biohub-acquires-evolutionaryscal", "date": "2025-11-20", "title": "Chan Zuckerberg Biohub acquires EvolutionaryScale", "publisher": "Genomely" } ] } ], "summary": "ESM3; acquired by CZ Biohub.", "logo": "assets/logos/evolutionaryscale.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/25/evolutionaryscale-backed-by-amazon-and-nvidia-raises-142m-for-protein-generating-ai/", "date": "2024-06-25", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/25/evolutionaryscale-backed-by-amazon-and-nvidia-raises-142m-for-protein-generating-ai/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://www.gunder.com/en/news-insights/client-news/gunderson-client-evolutionaryscale-team-joins-biohub-in-strategic-transaction-with-chan-zuckerberg-initiative", "date": "2025-11-06", "title": "EvolutionaryScale Team Joins Biohub in Strategic Transaction with Chan Zuckerberg Initiative", "publisher": "Gunderson Dettmer" } ] }, { "slug": "extropic", "name": "Extropic", "domain": "extropic.ai", "hq": "Massachusetts", "founded": "2022-06", "explainer": "Extropic's thermodynamic sampling units compute with the noise of transistors rather than against it, sampling probabilities instead of doing matrix multiplies. In July 2026 the U.S. Commerce Department signed a $75M CHIPS letter of intent to scale and onshore its Z1 chip.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 14100000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2023-12", "investors": [ "Kindred Ventures", "Buckley Ventures", "HOF Capital", "OSS Capital", "Valor Equity Partners" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2023/12/04/extropic-raises-14-1m-build-physics-based-computing-hardware-generative-ai/", "date": "2023-12-04", "title": "Extropic raises $14.1M to build ‘physics-based computing’ hardware for generative AI", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 75000000.0, "kind": "government (letter of intent)", "date": "2026-07", "investors": [ "U.S. Department of Commerce, CHIPS R&D" ], "note": "Non-binding letter of intent.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/extropic-signs-75-million-letter-of-intent-with-us-department-of-commerce-to-scale-and-onshore-thermodynamic-computing-302839290.html", "date": "2026-07-30", "title": "Extropic signs $75 million letter of intent with U.S. Department of Commerce", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ], "contested": true } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Thermodynamic sampling chips; $75M CHIPS letter of intent.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/extropic-signs-75-million-letter-of-intent-with-us-department-of-commerce-to-scale-and-onshore-thermodynamic-computing-302839290.html", "date": "2026-07-30", "title": "Extropic signs $75 million letter of intent with U.S. Department of Commerce", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ] } ], "summary": "Thermodynamic computing hardware.", "logo": "assets/logos/extropic.jpg", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/extropic-signs-75-million-letter-of-intent-with-us-department-of-commerce-to-scale-and-onshore-thermodynamic-computing-302839290.html", "date": "2026-07-30", "title": "Extropic signs $75 million letter of intent with U.S. Department of Commerce", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ] }, { "slug": "field-ai", "name": "FieldAI", "domain": "fieldai.com", "hq": "Mission Viejo, California", "founded": "2023", "explainer": "Builds 'risk-aware' foundation models for robots working in construction, mines and energy sites, on any body. Raised $405M across two rounds in August 2025 at $2B, backed by Bezos, Gates Frontier, Temasek and Nvidia.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 405000000.0, "kind": "funding rounds", "valuation_usd": 2000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-08", "investors": [ "Bezos Expeditions", "Prysm Capital", "Temasek", "Khosla Ventures", "NVentures", "Intel Capital", "Gates Frontier" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/20/fieldai-raises-405m-to-build-universal-robot-brains/", "date": "2025-08-20", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/20/fieldai-raises-405m-to-build-universal-robot-brains/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://www.fieldai.com/news/fieldai-announces-over-400m-in-funds-raised-to-advance-embodied-ai-at-scale", "date": "2025-08-20", "title": "FieldAI announces over $400M in funds raised", "publisher": "FieldAI" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Universal robot brains for industrial sites; $2B.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/20/fieldai-raises-405m-to-build-universal-robot-brains/", "date": "2025-08-20", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/20/fieldai-raises-405m-to-build-universal-robot-brains/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Robot models for construction, mining and energy.", "logo": "assets/logos/field-ai.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.fieldai.com/news/fieldai-announces-over-400m-in-funds-raised-to-advance-embodied-ai-at-scale", "date": "2025-08-20", "title": "FieldAI announces over $400M in funds raised", "publisher": "FieldAI" } ] }, { "slug": "figure", "name": "Figure", "domain": "figure.ai", "hq": "San Jose", "founded": "2022", "explainer": "Figure builds humanoids and the Helix vision-language-action system that drives them. Its Series C in September 2025 valued it at $39B, fifteen times its valuation eighteen months earlier. It reports robots working on BMW's Spartanburg line.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 70000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "date": "2023-05", "investors": [ "Parkway Venture Capital" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2023/05/24/ai-robotics-firm-figure-raises-70m-build-robots-human-form/", "date": "2023-05-24", "title": "AI robotics firm Figure raises $70M to build robots with a human form", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 675000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "valuation_usd": 2600000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2024-02", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.figure.ai/news/series-c", "date": "2025-09-16", "title": "Figure exceeds $1B in Series C funding at $39B post-money valuation", "publisher": "Figure" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 1000000000.0, "kind": "Series C", "valuation_usd": 39000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-09", "investors": [ "Parkway Venture Capital", "Brookfield", "Nvidia", "Intel Capital", "Microsoft", "OpenAI Startup Fund", "Bezos Expeditions" ], "note": "Round exceeded $1B in commitments.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.figure.ai/news/series-c", "date": "2025-09-16", "title": "Figure exceeds $1B in Series C funding at $39B post-money valuation", "publisher": "Figure" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Humanoids; Helix VLA. BMW deployment; $39B valuation.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.figure.ai/news/series-c", "date": "2025-09-16", "title": "Figure exceeds $1B in Series C funding at $39B post-money valuation", "publisher": "Figure" } ] } ], "summary": "Humanoids; Helix VLA. Warehouse deployments.", "logo": "assets/logos/figure.png", "logo_source": "duckduckgo", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.figure.ai/news/series-c", "date": "2025-09-16", "title": "Figure exceeds $1B in Series C funding at $39B post-money valuation", "publisher": "Figure" }, { "url": "https://www.techtimes.com/articles/326591/20260904/nscale-backs-figure-ai-35-billion-takes-equity-stake-humanoid-push.htm", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Nscale Backs Figure AI With $3.5 Billion, Takes Equity Stake in Humanoid Push", "publisher": "Tech Times" }, { "url": "https://techfundingnews.com/nscale-backs-figure-with-3-5b-ai-cloud-deal-as-humanoid-robotics-race-accelerates/", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Nscale backs Figure with $3.5B AI cloud deal as humanoid robotics race accelerates", "publisher": "Tech Funding News" } ], "status_note": "On 2026-09-03 Nscale committed $3.5B of compute (NVIDIA Vera Rubin, with intent to exceed $6B) and took an undisclosed equity stake; first hardware targeted for Barstow, Texas, in the second half of 2027. A compute contract, not a raise, so it is not in the totals." }, { "slug": "fourier", "name": "Fourier", "domain": "fourierintelligence.com", "hq": "Shanghai", "founded": "2015", "explainer": "Shanghai maker of the GR series humanoids, which started in rehabilitation robotics. GR-3, shown at CES 2026, is pitched at care and companionship rather than factories.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "GR-3 humanoid aimed at care rather than factories.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/fouriers-gr-3-humanoid-at-ces-2026", "date": "2026-01-07", "title": "Fourier's humanoid robot brings 'warm tech companionship' to CES 2026", "publisher": "Interesting Engineering" } ] } ], "summary": "GR-series humanoids from rehab robotics.", "logo": "assets/logos/fourier.svg", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/fouriers-gr-3-humanoid-at-ces-2026", "date": "2026-01-07", "title": "Fourier's humanoid robot brings 'warm tech companionship' to CES 2026", "publisher": "Interesting Engineering" } ] }, { "slug": "frontier-computing", "name": "Frontier Computing", "domain": "frontier.site", "hq": "London", "founded": "2026", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 10000000, "kind": "pre-seed", "date": "2026-09-02", "investors": [ "General Catalyst", "LocalGlobe", "Amino Collective", "Kaya", "Long Journey Ventures", "Off Piste Capital", "SVA" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wowtale.net/2026/09/02/234973/", "date": "2026-09-02", "title": "Frontier Computing Raises $10M Pre-Seed to Grow AI on Living Neurons", "publisher": "Wowtale" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Lab-grown neurons as a training substrate; a 500-million-neuron cluster planned for end of 2026", "primary": true, "from": "2026", "to": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wowtale.net/2026/09/02/234973/", "date": "2026-09-02", "title": "Frontier Computing Raises $10M Pre-Seed to Grow AI on Living Neurons", "publisher": "Wowtale" }, { "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/frontier-computing", "date": "2026-09-05", "title": "Frontier Computing: Frontier grows scalable biological brains as an ML training substrate", "publisher": "Y Combinator" } ] } ], "summary": "Wetware: lab-cultured neurons as a compute substrate; $10M pre-seed, Y Combinator S26.", "explainer": "The most literal version of the substrate bet. Founder Michael Domarkas, 19, grows neural tissue on electrode arrays and trains it as a learning system; memory and compute sit in the same place, so there is no data-movement bottleneck, and biological neurons learn from far less data than a network does. The stated target is a 500-million-neuron cluster by the end of 2026, orders of magnitude beyond Cortical Labs' CL1. The claim is unproven at that scale; what exists is a pre-seed and a demo playing Frogger.", "logo": "assets/logos/frontier-computing.jpg", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wowtale.net/2026/09/02/234973/", "date": "2026-09-02", "title": "Frontier Computing Raises $10M Pre-Seed to Grow AI on Living Neurons", "publisher": "Wowtale" }, { "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/frontier-computing", "date": "2026-09-05", "title": "Frontier Computing: Frontier grows scalable biological brains as an ML training substrate", "publisher": "Y Combinator" } ] }, { "slug": "futurehouse", "name": "FutureHouse", "domain": "futurehouse.org", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2023", "explainer": "A nonprofit founded by Sam Rodriques and Andrew White to build AI scientist agents. In November 2025 it spun out the for-profit Edison Scientific, whose Kosmos agent reads papers, analyzes data and writes cited reports; Edison raised $70M a month later.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "AI scientist agents, literature to hypothesis; spun out Edison Scientific (Kosmos) in 2025.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.hpcwire.com/aiwire/2025/11/07/futurehouse-spins-out-edison-scientific-launches-kosmos-ai-for-research/", "date": "2025-11-07", "title": "FutureHouse spins out Edison Scientific, launches Kosmos AI for research", "publisher": "AIwire" } ], "strand": "lab-in-the-loop" } ], "summary": "AI scientist agents, literature to hypothesis.", "logo": "assets/logos/futurehouse.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.hpcwire.com/aiwire/2025/11/07/futurehouse-spins-out-edison-scientific-launches-kosmos-ai-for-research/", "date": "2025-11-07", "title": "FutureHouse spins out Edison Scientific, launches Kosmos AI for research", "publisher": "AIwire" } ] }, { "slug": "galbot", "name": "Galbot", "domain": "galbot.com", "hq": "Beijing", "founded": "2023", "explainer": "Founded out of Peking University in 2023, Galbot was China's most valuable humanoid startup by late 2025 at $3B, then raised another $362M in March 2026 ahead of a planned Hong Kong listing.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 300000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 3000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-12", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/galbot-secures-over-300-million-in-new-funding-breaking-records-with-3-billion-valuation-in-chinas-humanoid-robot-sector-302647204.html", "date": "2025-12-22", "title": "Galbot secures over $300 million in new funding at $3 billion valuation", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 362000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "date": "2026-03", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.caixinglobal.com/2026-03-03/galbot-raises-362-million-in-fresh-funding-eyes-hong-kong-ipo-102418742.html", "date": "2026-03-03", "title": "Galbot Raises $362 Million in Fresh Funding, Eyes Hong Kong IPO", "publisher": "Caixin Global" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "China's most valuable humanoid startup; Hong Kong IPO planned.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.caixinglobal.com/2026-03-03/galbot-raises-362-million-in-fresh-funding-eyes-hong-kong-ipo-102418742.html", "date": "2026-03-03", "title": "Galbot Raises $362 Million in Fresh Funding, Eyes Hong Kong IPO", "publisher": "Caixin Global" } ] } ], "summary": "Beijing humanoid maker at $3B+.", "logo": "assets/logos/galbot.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/galbot-secures-over-300-million-in-new-funding-breaking-records-with-3-billion-valuation-in-chinas-humanoid-robot-sector-302647204.html", "date": "2025-12-22", "title": "Galbot secures over $300 million in new funding at $3 billion valuation", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ] }, { "slug": "general-intuition", "name": "General Intuition", "domain": "generalintuition.com", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2025", "explainer": "A spin-out of the game-clip platform Medal, which gives it billions of action-labeled gameplay clips. It raised a $134M seed in October 2025 to train agents with spatial-temporal reasoning from that data, then a $320M Series A at $2.3B.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 133699999.99999999, "kind": "seed", "date": "2025-10", "investors": [ "Khosla Ventures", "General Catalyst", "Raine Group" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/16/general-intuition-lands-134m-seed-to-teach-agents-spatial-reasoning-using-video-game-clips/", "date": "2025-10-16", "title": "General Intuition lands $134M seed to teach agents spatial reasoning using video game clips", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "World models and agents trained on Medal gameplay clips.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/16/general-intuition-lands-134m-seed-to-teach-agents-spatial-reasoning-using-video-game-clips/", "date": "2025-10-16", "title": "General Intuition lands $134M seed to teach agents spatial reasoning using video game clips", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Gameplay data as the road to world models.", "logo": "assets/logos/general-intuition.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/16/general-intuition-lands-134m-seed-to-teach-agents-spatial-reasoning-using-video-game-clips/", "date": "2025-10-16", "title": "General Intuition lands $134M seed to teach agents spatial reasoning using video game clips", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "generalist-ai", "name": "Generalist AI", "domain": "generalistai.com", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 400000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "valuation_usd": 2000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-06", "investors": [ "Radical Ventures", "8VC", "Union Square Ventures", "Norwest", "Hanabi Capital", "Nvidia", "Bezos Expeditions", "Fei-Fei Li" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-04/nvidia-backed-robotics-startup-generalist-ai-valued-at-2-billion", "date": "2026-06-04", "title": "Nvidia-backed robotics startup Generalist AI valued at $2 billion", "publisher": "Bloomberg" }, { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/25/robotics-startup-generalist-reaches-3b-valuation-sources-say/", "date": "2026-08-25", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/25/robotics-startup-generalist-reaches-3b-valuation-sources-say/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 200000000.0, "kind": "Series B extension", "valuation_usd": 3000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2026-08", "investors": [ "8VC" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/25/robotics-startup-generalist-reaches-3b-valuation-sources-say/", "date": "2026-08-25", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/25/robotics-startup-generalist-reaches-3b-valuation-sources-say/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "GEN-0 robot foundation model; scaling embodied data collection; $3B in August 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/25/robotics-startup-generalist-reaches-3b-valuation-sources-say/", "date": "2026-08-25", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/25/robotics-startup-generalist-reaches-3b-valuation-sources-say/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "GEN-0; robot scaling laws; $3B.", "logo": "assets/logos/generalist-ai.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/25/robotics-startup-generalist-reaches-3b-valuation-sources-say/", "date": "2026-08-25", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/25/robotics-startup-generalist-reaches-3b-valuation-sources-say/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ], "explainer": "Founded by DeepMind alumni Pete Florence and Andy Zeng with Boston Dynamics engineer Andrew Barry. Its GEN-0 model (November 2025) argued that robot foundation models follow the same scaling laws as language models. Raised $400M at $2B in June 2026 and a $200M extension at $3B in August.", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2024" }, { "slug": "genesis-ai", "name": "Genesis AI", "domain": "genesis.ai", "hq": "Paris and Palo Alto", "founded": "2024-12", "explainer": "Genesis pairs its open physics simulator with real-robot data to train a general robot model, and in 2026 went full-stack with its own human-shaped hand. It emerged from stealth in July 2025 with $105M from Eclipse and Khosla.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 105000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2025-07", "investors": [ "Eclipse", "Khosla Ventures", "Bpifrance", "HSG", "Eric Schmidt", "Xavier Niel" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.genesis.ai/press/genesis-ai-emerges-from-stealth-with-dollar105m-to-build-universal-robotics-found", "date": "2025-07-01", "title": "Genesis AI emerges from stealth with $105M to build universal robotics foundation model", "publisher": "Genesis AI" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Simulation-plus-real data robot model; own hand since 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.genesis.ai/press/genesis-ai-emerges-from-stealth-with-dollar105m-to-build-universal-robotics-found", "date": "2025-07-01", "title": "Genesis AI emerges from stealth with $105M to build universal robotics foundation model", "publisher": "Genesis AI" }, { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/06/khosla-backed-robotics-startup-genesis-ai-has-gone-full-stack-demo-shows/", "date": "2026-05-06", "title": "Khosla-backed robotics startup Genesis AI has gone full stack, demo shows", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "camp": "wm", "note": "Genesis physics simulator as the data engine.", "primary": false, "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.genesis.ai/press/genesis-ai-emerges-from-stealth-with-dollar105m-to-build-universal-robotics-found", "date": "2025-07-01", "title": "Genesis AI emerges from stealth with $105M to build universal robotics foundation model", "publisher": "Genesis AI" } ] } ], "summary": "Simulator-first robot learning.", "logo": "assets/logos/genesis-ai.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.genesis.ai/press/genesis-ai-emerges-from-stealth-with-dollar105m-to-build-universal-robotics-found", "date": "2025-07-01", "title": "Genesis AI emerges from stealth with $105M to build universal robotics foundation model", "publisher": "Genesis AI" } ] }, { "slug": "google-deepmind", "name": "Google DeepMind", "domain": "deepmind.google", "ticker": "NASDAQ:GOOGL", "hq": "London", "founded": "2010", "explainer": "Google DeepMind is the only organization with a serious effort in five camps: Gemini for LLM scaling, Genie 3 and Project Genie for world models, AlphaFold and GraphCast lineage for science, Gemini Robotics for robots, and a reinforcement-learning tradition that its head, David Silver, took with him when he left in January 2026.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Gemini. Also in every other camp.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://deepmind.google/models/gemini/", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Gemini models", "publisher": "Google DeepMind" } ] }, { "camp": "wm", "note": "Genie 3 (August 2025) generates playable worlds in real time; Project Genie opened it to subscribers in January 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/genie-3-a-new-frontier-for-world-models/", "date": "2025-08-05", "title": "Genie 3: a new frontier for world models", "publisher": "Google DeepMind" }, { "url": "https://9to5google.com/2026/01/29/google-project-genie/", "date": "2026-01-29", "title": "Google rolling out ‘Project Genie’ to generate playable worlds", "publisher": "9to5Google" } ] }, { "camp": "phys", "note": "GraphCast and AlphaFold; AlphaEvolve for algorithm discovery. The AlphaFold team dispersed in 2026, with Jumper leaving for Anthropic.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://the-decoder.com/deepmind-dismantles-its-alphafold-team-as-key-authors-leave-for-anthropic/", "date": "2026-06-20", "title": "DeepMind dismantles its AlphaFold team as key authors leave for Anthropic", "publisher": "The Decoder" } ], "strand": "simulator-first" }, { "camp": "rl", "note": "AlphaZero lineage and the 'Era of Experience' essay. RL head David Silver left in January 2026 to found Ineffable Intelligence.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://storage.googleapis.com/deepmind-media/Era-of-Experience%20/The%20Era%20of%20Experience%20Paper.pdf", "date": "2025-04-10", "title": "Welcome to the Era of Experience (Silver & Sutton)", "publisher": "Google DeepMind" }, { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/27/deepminds-david-silver-just-raised-1-1b-to-build-an-ai-that-learns-without-human-data/", "date": "2026-04-27", "title": "DeepMind's David Silver just raised $1.1B to build an AI that learns without human data", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "camp": "robot", "note": "Gemini Robotics 2 (July 2026) controls whole humanoid bodies; its models go into the next Boston Dynamics Atlas.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://deepmind.google/blog/gemini-robotics-2-brings-whole-body-intelligence-to-robots/", "date": "2026-07-15", "title": "Gemini Robotics 2 brings whole body intelligence to robots", "publisher": "Google DeepMind" }, { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/05/boston-dynamicss-next-gen-humanoid-robot-will-have-google-deepmind-dna/", "date": "2026-01-05", "title": "Boston Dynamics' next-gen humanoid robot will have Google DeepMind DNA", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Gemini, Genie, AlphaFold, Gemini Robotics, Silver. The only org in every camp.", "logo": "assets/logos/google-deepmind.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://qz.com/google-deepmind-weathernext-3-ai-weather-forecast-090326", "date": "2026-09-03", "title": "Google DeepMind launches WeatherNext 3 AI weather model", "publisher": "Quartz" } ], "status_note": "WeatherNext 3, released 2026-09-03, gives hourly global forecasts at 5 km from live satellite data and is wired into Search, Maps and the Gemini app; the physics camp's proof case, shipped to consumers." }, { "slug": "hugging-face", "name": "Hugging Face (LeRobot)", "domain": "huggingface.co", "hq": "New York and Paris", "founded": "2016", "explainer": "Hugging Face's LeRobot is the open-source stack most academic robot-learning work now runs on, from motor drivers to policy training. Nvidia moved GR00T N1.7 and Isaac Teleop into it in July 2026, with Cosmos 3 to follow.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 12930000000, "kind": "acquisition", "date": "2026-09-03", "investors": [ "NVIDIA" ], "note": "Agreed, not closed: about $11.9B to stockholders plus up to about $1B in retention equity; expected to close in the first half of 2027 subject to regulatory approval.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/03/nvidia-confirms-it-will-buy-hugging-face-for-12-9-billion/", "date": "2026-09-03", "title": "Nvidia confirms it will buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-to-acquire-hugging-face/", "date": "2026-09-03", "title": "NVIDIA to Acquire Hugging Face", "publisher": "NVIDIA" }, { "url": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001045810/000104581026000078/nvda-20260902.htm", "date": "2026-09-02", "title": "NVIDIA Form 8-K", "publisher": "SEC" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "LeRobot: the open-source robot-learning stack; Nvidia GR00T ships through it.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.22818", "date": "2026-02-25", "title": "LeRobot: An Open-Source Library for End-to-End Robot Learning", "publisher": "arXiv" }, { "url": "https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/hugging-face-lerobot-models-frameworks-open-robotics/", "date": "2026-07-07", "title": "NVIDIA and Hugging Face bring new models and frameworks to LeRobot", "publisher": "NVIDIA" } ] } ], "summary": "LeRobot, the open robot-learning stack; agreed sale to NVIDIA for $12.93B, September 2026.", "logo": "assets/logos/hugging-face.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.22818", "date": "2026-02-25", "title": "LeRobot: An Open-Source Library for End-to-End Robot Learning", "publisher": "arXiv" }, { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/03/nvidia-confirms-it-will-buy-hugging-face-for-12-9-billion/", "date": "2026-09-03", "title": "Nvidia confirms it will buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ], "status_note": "Agreed to be acquired by NVIDIA for $12.93B on 2026-09-03; closing expected in the first half of 2027. NVIDIA says the hub will keep supporting open and open-weight models." }, { "slug": "inception-labs", "name": "Inception", "domain": "inceptionlabs.ai", "hq": "Palo Alto", "founded": "2024", "explainer": "Stefano Ermon, a co-inventor of the diffusion methods behind image generation, with former students Aditya Grover and Volodymyr Kuleshov. Mercury, launched February 2025, generates text by iteratively denoising blocks of tokens, which the company reports at more than 1,000 tokens per second on one H100. Same training data as camp 1, a different generative process, which is why it sits with the substrates.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 50000000, "kind": "seed", "date": "2025-11-06", "investors": [ "Menlo Ventures", "Mayfield", "Innovation Endeavors", "M12", "Snowflake Ventures", "Databricks", "NVentures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/06/inception-raises-50-million-to-build-diffusion-models-for-code-and-text/", "date": "2025-11-06", "title": "Inception raises $50 million to build diffusion models for code and text", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Diffusion instead of autoregression for language", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/06/inception-raises-50-million-to-build-diffusion-models-for-code-and-text/", "date": "2025-11-06", "title": "Inception raises $50 million to build diffusion models for code and text", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.17298", "date": "2025-06-17", "title": "Mercury: Ultra-Fast Language Models Based on Diffusion", "publisher": "arXiv" } ] }, { "camp": "llm", "note": "Trained on the same text corpora and sold against camp 1 models", "primary": false, "sources": [ { "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.17298", "date": "2025-06-17", "title": "Mercury: Ultra-Fast Language Models Based on Diffusion", "publisher": "arXiv" } ] } ], "summary": "Diffusion language models: text generated by denoising blocks in parallel, not token by token.", "logo": "assets/logos/inception-labs.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/06/inception-raises-50-million-to-build-diffusion-models-for-code-and-text/", "date": "2025-11-06", "title": "Inception raises $50 million to build diffusion models for code and text", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "ineffable-intelligence", "name": "Ineffable Intelligence", "domain": "ineffable.ai", "hq": "London", "founded": "2026-01", "explainer": "David Silver ran reinforcement learning at DeepMind from 2013 (AlphaGo, AlphaZero) and left in January 2026 to found Ineffable. It raised $1.1B at $5.1B in April 2026, led by Sequoia and Lightspeed, to build a 'superlearner' that discovers skills without human data.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 1100000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 5100000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-04", "investors": [ "Sequoia Capital", "Lightspeed Venture Partners" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/27/deepminds-david-silver-just-raised-1-1b-to-build-an-ai-that-learns-without-human-data/", "date": "2026-04-27", "title": "DeepMind's David Silver just raised $1.1B to build an AI that learns without human data", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "rl", "note": "Silver's 'superlearner' that learns without human data; $1.1B at $5.1B.", "from": "2026-01", "to": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/27/deepminds-david-silver-just-raised-1-1b-to-build-an-ai-that-learns-without-human-data/", "date": "2026-04-27", "title": "DeepMind's David Silver just raised $1.1B to build an AI that learns without human data", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "David Silver's post-DeepMind lab; $5.1B.", "logo": "assets/logos/ineffable-intelligence.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/27/deepminds-david-silver-just-raised-1-1b-to-build-an-ai-that-learns-without-human-data/", "date": "2026-04-27", "title": "DeepMind's David Silver just raised $1.1B to build an AI that learns without human data", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "intel-loihi", "name": "Intel Labs (Loihi)", "domain": "intel.com", "ticker": "NASDAQ:INTC", "hq": "Santa Clara", "explainer": "Intel's neuromorphic research line. Hala Point, built in 2024 from 1,152 Loihi 2 chips, is the largest neuromorphic system, at 1.15 billion neurons.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Loihi 2 chips; Hala Point, the largest neuromorphic system.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/intel-unveils-115bn-neuron-neuromorphic-system-hala-point/", "date": "2024-04-17", "title": "Intel unveils 1.15bn neuron neuromorphic system, Hala Point", "publisher": "DCD" } ] } ], "summary": "Loihi neuromorphic research.", "logo": "assets/logos/intel-loihi.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/intel-unveils-115bn-neuron-neuromorphic-system-hala-point/", "date": "2024-04-17", "title": "Intel unveils 1.15bn neuron neuromorphic system, Hala Point", "publisher": "DCD" } ] }, { "slug": "isomorphic-labs", "name": "Isomorphic Labs", "domain": "isomorphiclabs.com", "parent": "google-deepmind", "hq": "London", "founded": "2021", "explainer": "Alphabet's drug-design company, spun out of DeepMind around AlphaFold. It took its first outside money, $600M led by Thrive Capital, in March 2025 to push programs into the clinic.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 600000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "date": "2025-03", "investors": [ "Thrive Capital", "GV", "Alphabet" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/31/alphabets-ai-drug-discovery-platform-isomorphic-labs-raises-600m-from-thrive/", "date": "2025-03-31", "title": "Alphabet's AI drug discovery platform Isomorphic Labs raises $600M from Thrive", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "AlphaFold lineage, drug design. $600M from Thrive in 2025.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/31/alphabets-ai-drug-discovery-platform-isomorphic-labs-raises-600m-from-thrive/", "date": "2025-03-31", "title": "Alphabet's AI drug discovery platform Isomorphic Labs raises $600M from Thrive", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ], "strand": "lab-in-the-loop" } ], "summary": "AlphaFold lineage, drug design.", "logo": "assets/logos/isomorphic-labs.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/31/alphabets-ai-drug-discovery-platform-isomorphic-labs-raises-600m-from-thrive/", "date": "2025-03-31", "title": "Alphabet's AI drug discovery platform Isomorphic Labs raises $600M from Thrive", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "kaust-ai", "name": "KAUST AI Initiative", "domain": "cemse.kaust.edu.sa", "hq": "Thuwal, Saudi Arabia", "founded": "2021", "explainer": "Jürgen Schmidhuber's group in Saudi Arabia, which in 2025 published the Huxley-Gödel Machine, a partial implementation of his self-rewriting Gödel machine idea from 2003.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Gödel machines and self-improving agents (Huxley-Gödel Machine, 2025).", "sources": [ { "url": "https://the-decoder.com/a-self-rewriting-ai-from-kaust-revives-jurgen-schmidhubers-vision-of-a-godel-machine/", "date": "2025-11-03", "title": "A self-rewriting AI from KAUST revives Jürgen Schmidhuber's vision of a Gödel Machine", "publisher": "The Decoder" } ] } ], "summary": "Schmidhuber's self-improving agents.", "logo": "assets/logos/kaust-ai.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://the-decoder.com/a-self-rewriting-ai-from-kaust-revives-jurgen-schmidhubers-vision-of-a-godel-machine/", "date": "2025-11-03", "title": "A self-rewriting AI from KAUST revives Jürgen Schmidhuber's vision of a Gödel Machine", "publisher": "The Decoder" } ] }, { "slug": "keen-technologies", "name": "Keen Technologies", "domain": null, "hq": "Dallas", "founded": "2022", "explainer": "John Carmack's AGI lab, started in 2022 with $20M from Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Patrick Collison, Tobi Lütke and Sequoia. Bets on reinforcement learning from runtime experience with a systems-engineering approach. Sutton and Javed left in 2026 to found Oak Lab.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 20000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2022-08", "investors": [ "Nat Friedman", "Daniel Gross", "Patrick Collison", "Tobi Lütke", "Sequoia" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://thenextweb.com/news/richard-sutton-oak-lab-reinforcement-learning", "date": "2026-07-14", "title": "The father of reinforcement learning is leaving Carmack to build his own AI", "publisher": "The Next Web" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "rl", "note": "Carmack's AGI lab. Sutton and Javed left in 2026 to found Oak Lab.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://betakit.com/ai-pioneer-richard-sutton-founds-new-research-lab/", "date": "2026-07-14", "title": "AI pioneer Richard Sutton founds new research lab", "publisher": "BetaKit" }, { "url": "https://thenextweb.com/news/richard-sutton-oak-lab-reinforcement-learning", "date": "2026-07-14", "title": "The father of reinforcement learning is leaving Carmack to build his own AI", "publisher": "The Next Web" } ] } ], "summary": "Carmack's AGI lab. Sutton and Javed left in 2026 to found Oak Lab.", "logo": null, "logo_source": null, "sources": [] }, { "slug": "latent-labs", "name": "Latent Labs", "domain": "latentlabs.com", "hq": "London and San Francisco", "founded": "2023", "explainer": "Founded by AlphaFold alumnus Simon Kohl. Designs proteins from scratch with generative models and licenses the models rather than running a drug pipeline. Came out of stealth with $50M in February 2025.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 50000000.0, "kind": "seed and Series A", "date": "2025-02", "investors": [ "Radical Ventures", "Sofinnova Partners", "8VC", "Pillar VC" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250213198098/en/Latent-Labs-Secures-$50M-in-Funding-to-Realize-the-Potential-of-AI-Powered-Programmable-Biology", "date": "2025-02-13", "title": "Latent Labs secures $50M in funding for AI-powered programmable biology", "publisher": "Business Wire" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "Generative protein design, licensed as a model.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250213198098/en/Latent-Labs-Secures-$50M-in-Funding-to-Realize-the-Potential-of-AI-Powered-Programmable-Biology", "date": "2025-02-13", "title": "Latent Labs secures $50M in funding for AI-powered programmable biology", "publisher": "Business Wire" } ], "strand": "lab-in-the-loop" } ], "summary": "Protein design from an AlphaFold alumnus.", "logo": "assets/logos/latent-labs.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250213198098/en/Latent-Labs-Secures-$50M-in-Funding-to-Realize-the-Potential-of-AI-Powered-Programmable-Biology", "date": "2025-02-13", "title": "Latent Labs secures $50M in funding for AI-powered programmable biology", "publisher": "Business Wire" } ] }, { "slug": "lila-sciences", "name": "Lila Sciences", "domain": "lila.ai", "hq": "Cambridge, MA", "founded": "2023", "explainer": "Lila, incubated by Flagship Pioneering, pairs models with automated labs and calls the goal scientific superintelligence. It had raised about $550M by late 2025 at a valuation above $1.3B, with Nvidia among the backers, and hired Kenneth Stanley to run open-endedness research.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 200000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2025-03", "investors": [ "Flagship Pioneering", "General Catalyst", "March Capital", "ARK Venture Fund" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/flagship-pioneering-unveils-lila-sciences-to-build-superintelligence-in-science-302397198.html", "date": "2025-03-10", "title": "Flagship Pioneering unveils Lila Sciences to build superintelligence in science", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 115000000.0, "kind": "Series A extension", "valuation_usd": 1300000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-10", "investors": [ "Nvidia" ], "note": "Series A total $350M; total raised ~$550M.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-ai-lab-lila-sciences-101645391.html", "date": "2025-10-02", "title": "Exclusive: AI lab Lila Sciences tops $1.3 billion valuation with new Nvidia backing", "publisher": "Reuters via Yahoo Finance" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "Scientific superintelligence via automated experiments; ~$550M raised.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-ai-lab-lila-sciences-101645391.html", "date": "2025-10-02", "title": "Exclusive: AI lab Lila Sciences tops $1.3 billion valuation with new Nvidia backing", "publisher": "Reuters via Yahoo Finance" } ], "strand": "lab-in-the-loop" }, { "camp": "rl", "note": "Open-endedness research under Kenneth Stanley.", "primary": false, "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.lila.ai/team/kenneth-stanley", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Kenneth Stanley, PhD | Lila", "publisher": "Lila Sciences" } ] } ], "summary": "Scientific superintelligence via automated experiments.", "logo": "assets/logos/lila-sciences.jpg", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-ai-lab-lila-sciences-101645391.html", "date": "2025-10-02", "title": "Exclusive: AI lab Lila Sciences tops $1.3 billion valuation with new Nvidia backing", "publisher": "Reuters via Yahoo Finance" } ] }, { "slug": "liquid-ai", "name": "Liquid AI", "domain": "liquid.ai", "hq": "Boston", "founded": "2023", "explainer": "An MIT spin-out that builds foundation models on liquid neural networks instead of transformers, aimed at small, efficient on-device deployment. AMD led a $250M Series A at about $2.35B in December 2024; Mercedes-Benz adopted its models for in-car use in 2026.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 37600000.0, "kind": "seed", "valuation_usd": 303000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2023-12", "investors": [ "OSS Capital", "PagsGroup", "Automattic", "Samsung Next" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/06/liquid-ai-a-new-mit-spinoff-wants-to-build-an-entirely-new-type-of-ai/", "date": "2023-12-06", "title": "Liquid AI, a new MIT spinoff, wants to build an entirely new type of AI", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 250000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "valuation_usd": 2350000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2024-12", "investors": [ "AMD Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techfundingnews.com/liquid-ai-closes-250m-hits-2b-valuation-with-amd-led-funding/", "date": "2024-12-13", "title": "Liquid AI closes $250M, hits $2B valuation with AMD-led funding", "publisher": "Tech Funding News" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Non-transformer foundation models (liquid networks); $2.35B; Mercedes deal.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techfundingnews.com/liquid-ai-closes-250m-hits-2b-valuation-with-amd-led-funding/", "date": "2024-12-13", "title": "Liquid AI closes $250M, hits $2B valuation with AMD-led funding", "publisher": "Tech Funding News" }, { "url": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260423009970/en/Mercedes-Benz-and-Liquid-AI-Partner-to-Scale-Embedded-In-Car-Intelligence-in-North-America", "date": "2026-04-23", "title": "Mercedes-Benz and Liquid AI partner to scale embedded in-car intelligence", "publisher": "Business Wire" } ] } ], "summary": "Non-transformer models from MIT.", "logo": "assets/logos/liquid-ai.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260423009970/en/Mercedes-Benz-and-Liquid-AI-Partner-to-Scale-Embedded-In-Car-Intelligence-in-North-America", "date": "2026-04-23", "title": "Mercedes-Benz and Liquid AI partner to scale embedded in-car intelligence", "publisher": "Business Wire" } ] }, { "slug": "luma", "name": "Luma AI", "domain": "lumalabs.ai", "hq": "Palo Alto", "founded": "2021", "explainer": "Luma started in 3D capture, became a video-generation company (Dream Machine, Ray), and now calls its models world models. Saudi Arabia's HUMAIN led its $900M Series C in November 2025 and is building it a two-gigawatt training cluster.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 43000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "date": "2024-01", "investors": [ "Andreessen Horowitz" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/09/luma-raises-43m-to-build-ai-that-crafts-3d-models", "date": "2024-01-09", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/09/luma-raises-43m-to-build-ai-that-crafts-3d-models", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 900000000.0, "kind": "Series C", "valuation_usd": 4000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2025-11", "investors": [ "HUMAIN", "AMD Ventures", "Andreessen Horowitz", "Amplify Partners", "Matrix Partners" ], "note": "Valuation reported as upwards of $4B.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/19/luma-ai-raises-900-million-in-funding-led-by-saudi-ai-firm-humain.html", "date": "2025-11-19", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "Video generation rebranded as world models; $900M from HUMAIN plus a 2 GW cluster.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/19/luma-ai-raises-900-million-in-funding-led-by-saudi-ai-firm-humain.html", "date": "2025-11-19", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] } ], "summary": "Video models with a Saudi-funded 2 GW cluster.", "logo": "assets/logos/luma.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/19/luma-ai-raises-900-million-in-funding-led-by-saudi-ai-firm-humain.html", "date": "2025-11-19", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] }, { "slug": "meta", "name": "Meta", "domain": "meta.com", "ticker": "NASDAQ:META", "hq": "Menlo Park", "founded": "2004-02", "explainer": "Meta ran the largest world-model research effort under LeCun at FAIR, then in June 2025 reorganised around Meta Superintelligence Labs under Alexandr Wang and put its money into frontier language models. Its Behemoth model was abandoned; the Muse family is hosted rather than open-weight. FAIR continues under Rob Fergus.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "FAIR under LeCun: JEPA and V-JEPA as the road to autonomous machine intelligence.", "from": "2013-12", "to": "2025-12", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/19/meta-chief-ai-scientist-yann-lecun-is-leaving-the-company-.html", "date": "2025-11-19", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] }, { "camp": "llm", "note": "Meta Superintelligence Labs (TBD Lab under Wang) went all-in on frontier LLMs after LeCun left. Muse models are hosted, not open.", "from": "2025-06", "to": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/30/mark-zuckerberg-creating-meta-superintelligence-labs-read-the-memo.html", "date": "2025-06-30", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" }, { "url": "https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-superintelligence-labs", "date": "2026-03-10", "title": "Meta Superintelligence Labs: what we know so far", "publisher": "Built In" } ] }, { "camp": "wm", "note": "FAIR still does V-JEPA under Rob Fergus.", "primary": false, "from": "2025-12", "to": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-superintelligence-labs", "date": "2026-03-10", "title": "Meta Superintelligence Labs: what we know so far", "publisher": "Built In" } ] } ], "summary": "Was camp 2 under LeCun; now camp 1 under Wang. FAIR still does V-JEPA.", "logo": "assets/logos/meta.jpg", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/30/mark-zuckerberg-creating-meta-superintelligence-labs-read-the-memo.html", "date": "2025-06-30", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" }, { "url": "https://www.marktechpost.com/2026/09/03/meta-ai-released-muse-spark-1-3-an-agentic-coding-model-that-uses-20-fewer-tool-calls-and-25-fewer-tokens-than-muse-spark-1-2/", "date": "2026-09-03", "title": "Meta AI Released Muse Spark 1.3", "publisher": "MarkTechPost" }, { "url": "https://winbuzzer.com/2026/09/04/meta-releases-muse-spark-1-3-model-longer-tool-based-work-xcxwbn/", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Meta Releases Muse Spark 1.3 Model for Longer Tool-Based Work", "publisher": "WinBuzzer" } ], "status_note": "Released Muse Spark 1.3 on 2026-09-02: a proprietary multimodal model with a one-million-token context, sold through Muse Code and the Meta Model API." }, { "slug": "microsoft-ai", "name": "Microsoft AI", "domain": "microsoft.ai", "ticker": "NASDAQ:MSFT", "parent": null, "hq": "Redmond", "founded": "2024-03", "explainer": "Microsoft AI, under Mustafa Suleyman, is Microsoft's in-house model effort. After a contract change with OpenAI freed it to pursue frontier models on its own, it unveiled seven MAI models at Build 2026, including its first reasoning model.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Seven in-house MAI models at Build 2026; a superintelligence team separate from OpenAI.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.geekwire.com/2026/microsoft-unveils-seven-homegrown-ai-models-in-bid-for-long-term-self-sufficiency/", "date": "2026-06-03", "title": "Microsoft unveils seven homegrown AI models in new bid for 'long term self-sufficiency'", "publisher": "GeekWire" } ] } ], "summary": "In-house MAI models; separate from OpenAI.", "logo": "assets/logos/microsoft-ai.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.geekwire.com/2026/microsoft-unveils-seven-homegrown-ai-models-in-bid-for-long-term-self-sufficiency/", "date": "2026-06-03", "title": "Microsoft unveils seven homegrown AI models in new bid for 'long term self-sufficiency'", "publisher": "GeekWire" } ] }, { "slug": "minimax", "name": "MiniMax", "domain": "minimax.io", "ticker": "HKEX:2610", "hq": "Shanghai", "founded": "2021-12", "explainer": "MiniMax came out of a consumer content business and listed in Hong Kong on January 9, 2026, a day after Zhipu, raising about $710M and doubling on its first day.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 600000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 2500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2024-03", "investors": [ "Alibaba" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2024/03/05/report-chinese-ai-startup-minimax-raises-600m-2-5b-valuation-led-alibaba/", "date": "2024-03-05", "title": "Report: Chinese AI startup MiniMax raises $600M at $2.5B valuation led by Alibaba", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 710000000.0, "kind": "ipo", "valuation_usd": 13700000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2026-01", "note": "HK$5.54B raised at HK$165/share; closed day one at HK$345.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/09/minimax-hong-kong-ipo-ai-tigers-zhipu.html", "date": "2026-01-09", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Open-weight models out of a content business; listed HKEX January 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/09/minimax-hong-kong-ipo-ai-tigers-zhipu.html", "date": "2026-01-09", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" }, { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniMax_(company)", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "MiniMax (company)", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] } ], "summary": "Listed in Hong Kong, January 2026.", "logo": "assets/logos/minimax.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniMax_(company)", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "MiniMax (company)", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] }, { "slug": "mistral", "name": "Mistral", "domain": "mistral.ai", "hq": "Paris", "founded": "2023-04", "explainer": "Mistral is Europe's open-weight frontier lab. ASML led its €1.7B Series C in September 2025 and took an 11% stake, valuing the company at €11.7B.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 113000000.0, "kind": "seed", "valuation_usd": 260000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2023-06", "investors": [ "Lightspeed" ], "note": "€105M.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/13/frances-mistral-ai-blows-in-with-a-113m-seed-round-at-a-260m-valuation-to-take-on-openai/", "date": "2023-06-13", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/13/frances-mistral-ai-blows-in-with-a-113m-seed-round-at-a-260m-valuation-to-take-on-openai/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 415000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "valuation_usd": 2000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2023-12", "investors": [ "Andreessen Horowitz", "Lightspeed" ], "note": "€385M.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/11/mistral-ai-a-paris-based-openai-rival-closed-its-415-million-funding-round/", "date": "2023-12-11", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/11/mistral-ai-a-paris-based-openai-rival-closed-its-415-million-funding-round/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 640000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "valuation_usd": 6200000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2024-06", "investors": [ "General Catalyst" ], "note": "€600M at €5.8B.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/11/paris-based-ai-startup-mistral-ai-raises-640-million", "date": "2024-06-11", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/11/paris-based-ai-startup-mistral-ai-raises-640-million", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 2000000000.0, "kind": "Series C", "valuation_usd": 13800000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-09", "investors": [ "ASML" ], "note": "€1.7B at €11.7B post-money; ASML contributed €1.3B for about 11%.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/09/ai-firm-mistral-valued-at-14-billion-as-asml-takes-major-stake.html", "date": "2025-09-09", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" }, { "url": "https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-ai-raises-1-7-b-to-accelerate-technological-progress-with-ai/", "date": "2025-09-09", "title": "Mistral AI raises 1.7B€ to accelerate technological progress with AI", "publisher": "Mistral AI" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "European open-weight frontier; ASML is its largest shareholder.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/09/ai-firm-mistral-valued-at-14-billion-as-asml-takes-major-stake.html", "date": "2025-09-09", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] } ], "summary": "European open-weight frontier.", "logo": "assets/logos/mistral.png", "logo_source": "duckduckgo", "sources": [ { "url": "https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-ai-raises-1-7-b-to-accelerate-technological-progress-with-ai/", "date": "2025-09-09", "title": "Mistral AI raises 1.7B€ to accelerate technological progress with AI", "publisher": "Mistral AI" } ] }, { "slug": "moonshot", "name": "Moonshot AI", "domain": "moonshot.ai", "hq": "Beijing", "founded": "2023-03", "explainer": "Moonshot builds the Kimi models. Its valuation went from about $4B at the start of 2026 to $35B by July after the Kimi K3 release, on a $3.5B round, and it is preparing a Hong Kong listing.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 1000000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 2500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2024-02", "investors": [ "Alibaba", "HongShan" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/21/moonshot-ai-funding-china/", "date": "2024-02-21", "title": "China's Moonshot AI zooms to $2.5B valuation, raising $1B for an LLM focused on long context", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 3500000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 35000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-07", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-29/china-s-moonshot-ai-passes-funding-goal-to-hit-35-billion-value", "date": "2026-07-29", "title": "Moonshot AI surpasses funding goal to hit $35 billion value", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 3000000000, "kind": "ipo filing", "date": "2026-09-03", "valuation_usd": 50000000000, "valuation_kind": "reported", "contested": true, "note": "Confidential Hong Kong filing reported at $3B, with up to $5B considered; the $50B figure is the valuation press reports attach to the current round.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://technode.com/2026/09/03/moonshot-ai-reportedly-submits-confidential-hong-kong-ipo-filing/", "date": "2026-09-03", "title": "Moonshot AI reportedly submits confidential Hong Kong IPO filing", "publisher": "TechNode" }, { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-04/moonshot-is-said-to-seek-up-to-5-billion-in-hk-ipo-this-year", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "China's Moonshot Said to Seek Up to $5 Billion in Hong Kong IPO This Year", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Kimi K-series; open weights; $35B valuation after K3.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-29/china-s-moonshot-ai-passes-funding-goal-to-hit-35-billion-value", "date": "2026-07-29", "title": "Moonshot AI surpasses funding goal to hit $35 billion value", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ] } ], "summary": "Kimi models; filed confidentially for a Hong Kong IPO in September 2026.", "logo": null, "logo_source": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-29/china-s-moonshot-ai-passes-funding-goal-to-hit-35-billion-value", "date": "2026-07-29", "title": "Moonshot AI surpasses funding goal to hit $35 billion value", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ], "status_note": "Filed confidentially for a Hong Kong listing in September 2026, reportedly seeking $3B to $5B." }, { "slug": "moonvalley", "name": "Moonvalley", "domain": "moonvalley.com", "hq": "Los Angeles and Toronto", "founded": "2021", "explainer": "Trains its Marey video model only on licensed footage, aimed at film production. Raised $84M in July 2025 from General Catalyst, CAA, CoreWeave and Comcast for $154M in total.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 84000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "date": "2025-07", "investors": [ "General Catalyst", "Creative Artists Agency", "CoreWeave", "Comcast Ventures", "Khosla Ventures" ], "note": "Total raised $154M.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250714518340/en/Moonvalley-Raises-Additional-$84-Million-to-Scale-Ambitious-Vision-for-Licensed-AI-Video-Model", "date": "2025-07-14", "title": "Moonvalley raises additional $84 million for licensed AI video model", "publisher": "Business Wire" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "Licensed-data video model (Marey) for film.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250714518340/en/Moonvalley-Raises-Additional-$84-Million-to-Scale-Ambitious-Vision-for-Licensed-AI-Video-Model", "date": "2025-07-14", "title": "Moonvalley raises additional $84 million for licensed AI video model", "publisher": "Business Wire" } ] } ], "summary": "Licensed-only video model for film.", "logo": "assets/logos/moonvalley.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250714518340/en/Moonvalley-Raises-Additional-$84-Million-to-Scale-Ambitious-Vision-for-Licensed-AI-Video-Model", "date": "2025-07-14", "title": "Moonvalley raises additional $84 million for licensed AI video model", "publisher": "Business Wire" } ] }, { "slug": "ndea", "name": "Ndea", "domain": "ndea.com", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2025-01", "explainer": "François Chollet and Mike Knoop started Ndea in January 2025 around deep-learning-guided program synthesis: use a neural net to guess candidate programs, then search and verify. It has raised about $43M from Y Combinator, Coatue and others.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 43500000.0, "kind": "disclosed funding to date", "date": "2026-05", "investors": [ "Y Combinator", "Coatue", "Factorial Capital", "Quiet Capital" ], "note": "Cumulative disclosed; round structure not public.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.startuphub.ai/ai-news/claudes-corner/2026/claudes-corner-ndea-yc-w2026", "date": "2026-05-20", "title": "Ndea (YC W2026): Chollet's $43M program-synthesis AGI lab", "publisher": "StartupHub" } ], "contested": true } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Deep-learning-guided program synthesis; ~$43M raised.", "from": "2025-01", "to": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/15/ai-researcher-francois-chollet-founds-a-new-ai-lab-focused-on-agi/", "date": "2025-01-15", "title": "AI researcher François Chollet founds a new AI lab focused on AGI", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Deep-learning-guided program synthesis.", "logo": null, "logo_source": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/15/ai-researcher-francois-chollet-founds-a-new-ai-lab-focused-on-agi/", "date": "2025-01-15", "title": "AI researcher François Chollet founds a new AI lab focused on AGI", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "neura-robotics", "name": "NEURA Robotics", "domain": "neura-robotics.com", "hq": "Metzingen, Germany", "founded": "2019", "explainer": "Europe's best-funded humanoid company. Its Series C of up to $1.4B in June 2026, with Tether, Amazon, Nvidia, Qualcomm and Bosch, valued it around €4B; it reports an order book above $1B and a 6,000-unit target for 2026.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 1400000000.0, "kind": "Series C", "valuation_usd": 4600000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2026-06", "investors": [ "Tether", "Qualcomm", "Amazon", "Nvidia", "Bosch", "Schaeffler", "European Investment Bank" ], "note": "Round size \"up to $1.4B\"; valuation reported at about €4B.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://neura-robotics.com/record-series-c/", "date": "2026-06-10", "title": "NEURA Robotics announces record Series C of up to $1.4B", "publisher": "NEURA Robotics" }, { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/10/neura-robotics-funding-ai-humanoid-robots.html", "date": "2026-06-10", "title": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/10/neura-robotics-funding-ai-humanoid-robots.html", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Europe's best-funded humanoid maker; $1.4B Series C.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/10/neura-robotics-funding-ai-humanoid-robots.html", "date": "2026-06-10", "title": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/10/neura-robotics-funding-ai-humanoid-robots.html", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] } ], "summary": "Europe's best-funded humanoid maker.", "logo": "assets/logos/neura-robotics.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://neura-robotics.com/record-series-c/", "date": "2026-06-10", "title": "NEURA Robotics announces record Series C of up to $1.4B", "publisher": "NEURA Robotics" } ] }, { "slug": "normal-computing", "name": "Normal Computing", "domain": "normalcomputing.com", "hq": "New York", "founded": "2022", "explainer": "Normal taped out CN101, the first thermodynamic computing chip, in August 2025, aimed at diffusion-model inference. Samsung Catalyst led a $50M round in March 2026, taking it to $85M raised.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 8500000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2023-06", "investors": [ "Celesta Capital", "First Spark Ventures", "Micron Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.normalcomputing.com/blog/normal-computing-raises-8-5m-in-seed-funding-to-enable-ai-solutions-for-critical-enterprise-and-government-applications", "date": "2023-06-13", "title": "Normal Computing raises $8.5M in seed funding", "publisher": "Normal Computing" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 50000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "date": "2026-03", "investors": [ "Samsung Catalyst Fund", "Galvanize", "Brevan Howard", "Micron Ventures" ], "note": "Total raised $85M.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/normal-computing-raises-50m-led-by-samsung-catalyst-to-accelerate-silicon-design-and-solve-ai-hardware-energy-crisis-302724819.html", "date": "2026-03-24", "title": "Normal Computing raises $50M led by Samsung Catalyst", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Thermodynamic chip CN101; $85M raised.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/normal-computing-raises-50m-led-by-samsung-catalyst-to-accelerate-silicon-design-and-solve-ai-hardware-energy-crisis-302724819.html", "date": "2026-03-24", "title": "Normal Computing raises $50M led by Samsung Catalyst", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ] } ], "summary": "Probabilistic hardware for AI.", "logo": "assets/logos/normal-computing.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/normal-computing-raises-50m-led-by-samsung-catalyst-to-accelerate-silicon-design-and-solve-ai-hardware-energy-crisis-302724819.html", "date": "2026-03-24", "title": "Normal Computing raises $50M led by Samsung Catalyst", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ] }, { "slug": "numenta", "name": "Numenta", "domain": "numenta.com", "hq": "Redwood City", "founded": "2005", "explainer": "Jeff Hawkins's company spun its Thousand Brains Project into an independent nonprofit in January 2025 to build sensorimotor AI on cortical principles; Numenta itself applies neuroscience to deep learning.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Cortical theory; Thousand Brains Project spun out as a nonprofit in 2025.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250107503206/en/Numenta-Creates-Independent-Nonprofit-with-the-Thousand-Brains-Project-to-Advance-AI-Research", "date": "2025-01-07", "title": "Numenta creates independent nonprofit with the Thousand Brains Project", "publisher": "Business Wire" } ] } ], "summary": "Cortical theory, sparse computation.", "logo": "assets/logos/numenta.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250107503206/en/Numenta-Creates-Independent-Nonprofit-with-the-Thousand-Brains-Project-to-Advance-AI-Research", "date": "2025-01-07", "title": "Numenta creates independent nonprofit with the Thousand Brains Project", "publisher": "Business Wire" } ] }, { "slug": "nvidia", "name": "NVIDIA", "domain": "nvidia.com", "ticker": "NASDAQ:NVDA", "hq": "Santa Clara", "founded": "1993", "explainer": "Nvidia sells the compute every camp runs on, and it also ships models: Cosmos world models as a data engine for robots, the GR00T humanoid foundation models, Isaac simulation, and the neural-operator work (FourCastNet) that seeded the physics camp. GR00T N2, previewed at GTC 2026, is built on world-model research.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "Cosmos world foundation models as a data engine for robots; Cosmos 3 announced at GTC 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-expands-open-model-families-to-power-the-next-wave-of-agentic-physical-and-healthcare-ai", "date": "2026-03-16", "title": "NVIDIA expands open model families to power the next wave of agentic, physical and healthcare AI", "publisher": "NVIDIA" } ] }, { "camp": "robot", "note": "GR00T N1 (March 2025) was the first open humanoid foundation model; N2 previewed at GTC 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-isaac-gr00t-n1-open-humanoid-robot-foundation-model-simulation-frameworks", "date": "2025-03-18", "title": "NVIDIA announces Isaac GR00T N1, the world's first open humanoid robot foundation model", "publisher": "NVIDIA" }, { "url": "https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-expands-open-model-families-to-power-the-next-wave-of-agentic-physical-and-healthcare-ai", "date": "2026-03-16", "title": "NVIDIA expands open model families to power the next wave of agentic, physical and healthcare AI", "publisher": "NVIDIA" } ] }, { "camp": "llm", "note": "GPUs for everyone; Nemotron open models.", "primary": false, "sources": [ { "url": "https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-expands-open-model-families-to-power-the-next-wave-of-agentic-physical-and-healthcare-ai", "date": "2026-03-16", "title": "NVIDIA expands open model families to power the next wave of agentic, physical and healthcare AI", "publisher": "NVIDIA" } ] }, { "camp": "phys", "note": "Neural operators (FNO, FourCastNet) came out of NVIDIA research.", "primary": false, "sources": [ { "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.11214", "date": "2022-02-22", "title": "FourCastNet (Nvidia)", "publisher": "arXiv" } ], "strand": "simulator-first" } ], "summary": "Picks and shovels for all of them: GPUs, Cosmos, GR00T, Isaac, neural operators.", "logo": "assets/logos/nvidia.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [] }, { "slug": "oak-lab", "name": "Oak Lab", "domain": "oaklab.ai", "hq": "Toronto", "founded": "2026-07", "explainer": "Richard Sutton and Khurram Javed left Keen Technologies in July 2026 to found Oak Lab. The stated target is an agent with about a trillion parameters that learns continually from its own experience, one step at a time with no replay, on 20 watts. Public results so far are toy-scale.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "rl", "note": "Continual learning from raw experience; target 1T parameters at 20 W. Founded July 2026.", "from": "2026-07", "to": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://betakit.com/ai-pioneer-richard-sutton-founds-new-research-lab/", "date": "2026-07-14", "title": "AI pioneer Richard Sutton founds new research lab", "publisher": "BetaKit" }, { "url": "https://the-decoder.com/turing-award-winner-rich-sutton-founds-oak-lab-to-build-ai-agents-that-learn-on-their-own/", "date": "2026-07-13", "title": "Rich Sutton founds Oak Lab to build AI agents that learn on their own", "publisher": "The Decoder" }, { "url": "https://oaklab.ai/", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Oak Lab", "publisher": "Oak Lab" } ] } ], "summary": "Toronto, July 2026. 1T params learning in real time at 20W.", "logo": "assets/logos/oak-lab.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://betakit.com/ai-pioneer-richard-sutton-founds-new-research-lab/", "date": "2026-07-14", "title": "AI pioneer Richard Sutton founds new research lab", "publisher": "BetaKit" }, { "url": "https://the-decoder.com/turing-award-winner-rich-sutton-founds-oak-lab-to-build-ai-agents-that-learn-on-their-own/", "date": "2026-07-13", "title": "Rich Sutton founds Oak Lab to build AI agents that learn on their own", "publisher": "The Decoder" } ] }, { "slug": "odyssey", "name": "Odyssey", "domain": "odyssey.world", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2023", "explainer": "Founded by two self-driving veterans, Odyssey builds interactive video world models for simulation. Its $310M Series B in June 2026 valued it at $1.45B with Amazon, GV and AMD among the backers.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 310000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "valuation_usd": 1450000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-06", "investors": [ "Natural Capital", "Amazon", "AMD Ventures", "GV", "EQT", "IQT" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/17/world-model-maker-odyssey-nabs-1-45b-valuation-backed-by-amazon-and-other-big-names/", "date": "2026-06-17", "title": "World model maker Odyssey nabs $1.45B valuation backed by Amazon and other big names", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "Interactive video world models for simulation; $1.45B in June 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/17/world-model-maker-odyssey-nabs-1-45b-valuation-backed-by-amazon-and-other-big-names/", "date": "2026-06-17", "title": "World model maker Odyssey nabs $1.45B valuation backed by Amazon and other big names", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Interactive world models from self-driving veterans.", "logo": "assets/logos/odyssey.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/17/world-model-maker-odyssey-nabs-1-45b-valuation-backed-by-amazon-and-other-big-names/", "date": "2026-06-17", "title": "World model maker Odyssey nabs $1.45B valuation backed by Amazon and other big names", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "openai", "name": "OpenAI", "domain": "openai.com", "status": "active", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2015-12", "explainer": "OpenAI trained the GPT series on internet text, then added reinforcement learning from human feedback and, with the o-series, reinforcement learning on verifiable outcomes. Its bet is that scale plus post-training plus tools gets to general capability. It filed confidentially for an IPO in June 2026, a week after Anthropic.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 10000000000.0, "kind": "strategic investment", "date": "2023-01", "investors": [ "Microsoft" ], "note": "Multiyear, multibillion-dollar extension of the Microsoft partnership; $10B widely reported.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/23/23567448/microsoft-openai-partnership-extension-ai", "date": "2023-01-23", "title": "Microsoft extends OpenAI partnership in a 'multibillion dollar investment'", "publisher": "The Verge" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 6600000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 157000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2024-10", "investors": [ "Thrive Capital", "Microsoft", "Nvidia", "SoftBank" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/02/openai-raises-6-6b-and-is-now-valued-at-157b/", "date": "2024-10-02", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/02/openai-raises-6-6b-and-is-now-valued-at-157b/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 40000000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 300000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-03", "investors": [ "SoftBank" ], "note": "SoftBank committed $30B of the $40B.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/31/openai-closes-40-billion-in-funding-the-largest-private-fundraise-in-history-softbank-chatgpt.html", "date": "2025-03-31", "title": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/31/openai-closes-40-billion-in-funding-the-largest-private-fundraise-in-history-softbank-chatgpt.html", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 122000000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 852000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-03", "note": "Announced at $110B on 27 February (Amazon $50B, Nvidia $30B, SoftBank $30B); closed at $122B on 31 March, including $3B from retail investors.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/31/openai-funding-round-ipo.html", "date": "2026-03-31", "title": "OpenAI closes record-breaking $122 billion funding round as anticipation builds for IPO", "publisher": "CNBC" }, { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/27/open-ai-funding-round-amazon.html", "date": "2026-02-27", "title": "OpenAI announces $110 billion funding round with backing from Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank", "publisher": "CNBC" } ], "investors": [ "Amazon", "Nvidia", "SoftBank" ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "GPT lineage, o-series reasoning, agents. Filed confidentially for an IPO in June 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/08/following-anthropic-openai-files-confidentially-for-ipo/", "date": "2026-06-08", "title": "OpenAI files confidentially for IPO, following Anthropic", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "camp": "wm", "note": "Sora positioned as a world simulator.", "primary": false, "sources": [ { "url": "https://openai.com/index/video-generation-models-as-world-simulators/", "date": "2024-02-15", "title": "Video generation models as world simulators (Sora technical report)", "publisher": "OpenAI" } ] }, { "camp": "robot", "note": "Rebuilt a robotics and hardware group from late 2024; its hardware lead resigned in March 2026 over a Pentagon contract.", "primary": false, "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitlin_Kalinowski", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Caitlin Kalinowski", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] } ], "summary": "GPT lineage through GPT-6 Astra (September 2026), o-series reasoning, agents. Also dabbling in world simulation and robotics.", "logo": "assets/logos/openai.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/08/following-anthropic-openai-files-confidentially-for-ipo/", "date": "2026-06-08", "title": "OpenAI files confidentially for IPO, following Anthropic", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://www.axios.com/2026/09/03/openai-astra-gpt-6-agi-brockman", "date": "2026-09-03", "title": "'Welcome to the AGI era,' OpenAI says as GPT-6 Astra debuts", "publisher": "Axios" }, { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/03/open-ai-astra-gpt-6-cyber.html", "date": "2026-09-03", "title": "OpenAI announces rollout of GPT-6 Astra model", "publisher": "CNBC" } ], "status_note": "Released GPT-6 Astra as a limited preview on 2026-09-03; Brockman called it the start of 'the AGI era'. First OpenAI model rated 'critical' for cyber capability under its own preparedness framework." }, { "slug": "orbital-industries", "name": "Orbital Industries", "domain": "orbitalmaterials.com", "hq": "London", "founded": "2022", "explainer": "Formerly Orbital Materials, founded by ex-DeepMind researcher Jonathan Godwin. Uses generative models to design materials for data-center cooling and carbon capture; raised a $50M Series B led by Plural in May 2026.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 50000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "date": "2026-05", "investors": [ "Plural", "NVentures", "Radical Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/05/28/exclusive-orbital-industries-raises-50-million-series-b-funding-round-ai-to-discover-exotic-new-materials/", "date": "2026-05-28", "title": "https://fortune.com/2026/05/28/exclusive-orbital-industries-raises-50-million-series-b-funding-round-ai-to-discover-exotic-new-materials/", "publisher": "Fortune" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "Generative materials for data-center hardware and carbon capture.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/05/28/exclusive-orbital-industries-raises-50-million-series-b-funding-round-ai-to-discover-exotic-new-materials/", "date": "2026-05-28", "title": "https://fortune.com/2026/05/28/exclusive-orbital-industries-raises-50-million-series-b-funding-round-ai-to-discover-exotic-new-materials/", "publisher": "Fortune" } ], "strand": "simulator-first" } ], "summary": "An 'AlphaFold for materials', rebranded in 2026.", "logo": "assets/logos/orbital-industries.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/05/28/exclusive-orbital-industries-raises-50-million-series-b-funding-round-ai-to-discover-exotic-new-materials/", "date": "2026-05-28", "title": "https://fortune.com/2026/05/28/exclusive-orbital-industries-raises-50-million-series-b-funding-round-ai-to-discover-exotic-new-materials/", "publisher": "Fortune" } ] }, { "slug": "periodic-labs", "name": "Periodic Labs", "domain": "periodic.com", "hq": "Menlo Park", "founded": "2025", "explainer": "Periodic Labs pairs language models with automated labs to discover materials, starting with superconductors and semiconductor thermal problems. Its $300M seed in September 2025 was led by a16z at a $1.3B valuation; by May 2026 it was raising at a reported $7.5B.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 300000000.0, "kind": "seed", "valuation_usd": 1300000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-09", "investors": [ "Andreessen Horowitz", "DST", "NVentures", "Accel", "Felicis", "Jeff Bezos", "Eric Schmidt", "Jeff Dean" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/30/former-openai-and-deepmind-researchers-raise-whopping-300m-seed-to-automate-science/", "date": "2025-09-30", "title": "Former OpenAI and DeepMind researchers raise whopping $300M seed to automate science", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 500000000.0, "kind": "funding round (reported talks)", "valuation_usd": 7500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2026-05", "note": "Reported talks, not a closed round.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2026/05/07/former-openai-researcher-to-raise-500-million-for-ai-science-startup/", "date": "2026-05-07", "title": "Former OpenAI researcher to raise $500 million for AI science startup", "publisher": "Forbes" } ], "contested": true } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "Autonomous labs plus models for materials discovery. $300M seed; reported $7.5B talks in 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/30/former-openai-and-deepmind-researchers-raise-whopping-300m-seed-to-automate-science/", "date": "2025-09-30", "title": "Former OpenAI and DeepMind researchers raise whopping $300M seed to automate science", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ], "strand": "lab-in-the-loop" } ], "summary": "Autonomous labs plus models for materials discovery.", "logo": "assets/logos/periodic-labs.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/30/former-openai-and-deepmind-researchers-raise-whopping-300m-seed-to-automate-science/", "date": "2025-09-30", "title": "Former OpenAI and DeepMind researchers raise whopping $300M seed to automate science", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "physical-intelligence", "name": "Physical Intelligence", "domain": "physicalintelligence.company", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2024-03", "explainer": "Physical Intelligence builds vision-language-action policies (pi0, pi0.5) that generalize across robot bodies and to homes it has never seen. CapitalG led its $600M Series B at $5.6B in November 2025; it has raised about $1.07B in total.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 70000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2024-03", "investors": [ "Thrive Capital", "Sequoia", "Lux Capital", "Khosla Ventures", "OpenAI" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.maginative.com/article/physical-intelligence-raises-70m-to-build-ai-powered-robots-for-any-application/", "date": "2024-03-12", "title": "Physical Intelligence raises $70M to build AI-powered robots for any application", "publisher": "Maginative" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 400000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "valuation_usd": 2400000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2024-11", "investors": [ "Jeff Bezos", "OpenAI", "Thrive Capital", "Lux Capital", "Bond" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/04/jeff-bezos-and-openai-invest-in-robot-startup-physical-intelligence.html", "date": "2024-11-04", "title": "https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/04/jeff-bezos-and-openai-invest-in-robot-startup-physical-intelligence.html", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 600000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "valuation_usd": 5600000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-11", "investors": [ "CapitalG", "Lux Capital", "Thrive Capital", "Bezos Expeditions", "Index Ventures", "T. Rowe Price" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-20/robotics-startup-physical-intelligence-valued-at-5-6-billion-in-new-funding", "date": "2025-11-20", "title": "Robotics startup Physical Intelligence valued at $5.6 billion in new funding", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "pi0 / pi0.5. Generalisation to unseen homes; $5.6B in November 2025.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-20/robotics-startup-physical-intelligence-valued-at-5-6-billion-in-new-funding", "date": "2025-11-20", "title": "Robotics startup Physical Intelligence valued at $5.6 billion in new funding", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ] }, { "camp": "rl", "note": "Levine's wing is philosophically closer to the experience camp.", "primary": false, "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.physicalintelligence.company/blog/pistar06", "date": "2025-11-18", "title": "π*0.6: a VLA that learns from experience", "publisher": "Physical Intelligence" } ] } ], "summary": "VLA architecture from camp 1, RL philosophy from camp 4.", "logo": null, "logo_source": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-20/robotics-startup-physical-intelligence-valued-at-5-6-billion-in-new-funding", "date": "2025-11-20", "title": "Robotics startup Physical Intelligence valued at $5.6 billion in new funding", "publisher": "Bloomberg" } ] }, { "slug": "physical-superintelligence", "name": "Physical Superintelligence", "domain": "psi.inc", "hq": "Cambridge, MA", "founded": "2026", "explainer": "Launched September 1, 2026 by Matt Pines (CEO), Alex Klokus and Alexander Wissner-Gross with a $58M seed led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Its Emmy platform is a team of virtual physicists over a reasoning engine and a large library of simulations: it builds world models of a physical system, splits a research problem into verifiable hypotheses and tests them in parallel. The first commercial target is the multiphysics design of AI data centers, on the ground and in orbit.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 58000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2026-09", "investors": [ "Breakthrough Energy Ventures", "Dragon Global", "Robot Ventures", "SV Angel" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/physical-superintelligence-raises-58m-to-develop-ai-physics-platform/", "date": "2026-09-01", "title": "Physical Superintelligence raises $58M to develop AI physics platform", "publisher": "HPCwire" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "Virtual physicists over simulations; $58M seed, September 2026.", "from": "2026-09", "to": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/physical-superintelligence-raises-58m-to-develop-ai-physics-platform/", "date": "2026-09-01", "title": "Physical Superintelligence raises $58M to develop AI physics platform", "publisher": "HPCwire" } ], "strand": "simulator-first" } ], "summary": "Virtual physicists; launched September 2026.", "logo": "assets/logos/physical-superintelligence.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/physical-superintelligence-raises-58m-to-develop-ai-physics-platform/", "date": "2026-09-01", "title": "Physical Superintelligence raises $58M to develop AI physics platform", "publisher": "HPCwire" }, { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/introducing-physical-superintelligence-the-worlds-most-advanced-physics-lab-staffed-by-virtual-physicists-to-discover-new-laws-of-the-universe-302865561.html", "date": "2026-09-01", "title": "Introducing Physical Superintelligence: The World's Most Advanced Physics Lab, Staffed by Virtual Physicists", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ] }, { "slug": "physicsx", "name": "PhysicsX", "domain": "physicsx.ai", "hq": "London", "founded": "2019", "explainer": "PhysicsX sells learned physics surrogates to industrial engineers so they can evaluate thousands of designs instead of a handful. Temasek led its $300M Series C at about $2.4B in June 2026, with Siemens and Nvidia among the investors.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 32000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "date": "2023-11", "investors": [ "General Catalyst", "Standard Investments", "NGP", "Radius Capital" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.physicsx.ai/newsroom/physicsx-raises-32m-to-give-engineers-ai-superpowers-to-accelerate-design-of-advanced-technologies", "date": "2023-11-27", "title": "PhysicsX raises $32M to give engineers AI superpowers", "publisher": "PhysicsX" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 135000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "date": "2025-06", "investors": [ "Atomico", "Temasek", "Siemens", "Applied Materials", "July Fund" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.physicsx.ai/newsroom/physicsx-raises-135m-series-b-to-usher-in-a-new-era-of-ai-native-engineering-and-manufacturing", "date": "2025-06-22", "title": "PhysicsX raises $135M Series B", "publisher": "PhysicsX" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 300000000.0, "kind": "Series C", "valuation_usd": 2400000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-06", "investors": [ "Temasek", "M&G", "Intrepid Growth Partners", "Applied Materials", "Atomico", "General Catalyst", "Nvidia", "Siemens" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.physicsx.ai/newsroom/physicsx-announces-300m-series-c-to-accelerate-physics-ai-for-industrial-engineering", "date": "2026-06-08", "title": "PhysicsX announces $300M Series C to accelerate physics AI for industrial engineering", "publisher": "PhysicsX" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "Physics AI for industrial engineering; $2.4B in June 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.physicsx.ai/newsroom/physicsx-announces-300m-series-c-to-accelerate-physics-ai-for-industrial-engineering", "date": "2026-06-08", "title": "PhysicsX announces $300M Series C to accelerate physics AI for industrial engineering", "publisher": "PhysicsX" } ], "strand": "simulator-first" } ], "summary": "Learned physics surrogates for engineers.", "logo": "assets/logos/physicsx.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.physicsx.ai/newsroom/physicsx-announces-300m-series-c-to-accelerate-physics-ai-for-industrial-engineering", "date": "2026-06-08", "title": "PhysicsX announces $300M Series C to accelerate physics AI for industrial engineering", "publisher": "PhysicsX" } ] }, { "slug": "poetiq", "name": "Poetiq", "domain": "poetiq.ai", "hq": "Mountain View", "founded": "2025-06", "explainer": "Two ex-DeepMind researchers built a 'meta-system' that wraps a frontier model in learned test-time reasoning. In December 2025 it set the verified ARC-AGI-2 record at 54%, on top of Gemini 3, at about half the cost of Google's own Deep Think. Raised a $45.8M seed in January 2026.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 45800000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2026-01", "investors": [ "FYRFLY Venture Partners", "Surface Ventures", "Y Combinator", "468 Capital", "Operator Collective" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/01/30/poetiq-nabs-45-8m-seed-funding-llm-enhancing-meta-system/", "date": "2026-01-30", "title": "Poetiq nabs $45.8M in seed funding for its LLM-enhancing ‘meta-system’", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Learned test-time reasoning over frontier models; ARC-AGI-2 record 54%.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://poetiq.ai/posts/arcagi_verified/", "date": "2025-12-05", "title": "Poetiq shatters ARC-AGI-2 state of the art at half the cost", "publisher": "Poetiq" }, { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/01/30/poetiq-nabs-45-8m-seed-funding-llm-enhancing-meta-system/", "date": "2026-01-30", "title": "Poetiq nabs $45.8M in seed funding for its LLM-enhancing ‘meta-system’", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] } ], "summary": "Test-time reasoning wrapper; ARC-AGI-2 record.", "logo": "assets/logos/poetiq.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/01/30/poetiq-nabs-45-8m-seed-funding-llm-enhancing-meta-system/", "date": "2026-01-30", "title": "Poetiq nabs $45.8M in seed funding for its LLM-enhancing ‘meta-system’", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] }, { "slug": "prime-intellect", "name": "Prime Intellect", "domain": "primeintellect.ai", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2024", "explainer": "Prime Intellect aggregates distributed compute and sells reinforcement-learning environments and training tools so companies can keep improving their own agents instead of renting a frontier model. Radical Ventures led its $130M Series A at $1B in July 2026; it reports $100M in annualized revenue.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 5500000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2024-04", "investors": [ "Distributed Global", "CoinFund" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://fortune.com/2024/04/23/coinfund-distributed-global-prime-intellect-artificial-intelligence-ai-development/", "date": "2024-04-23", "title": "AI startup Prime Intellect raises $5.5M to build high-powered, decentralized research platform", "publisher": "Fortune" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 130000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "valuation_usd": 1000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-07", "investors": [ "Radical Ventures", "NVentures", "Intel Capital", "Dell Technologies Capital", "Iconiq" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/08/prime-intellect-raises-130m-series-a-to-help-enterprises-build-their-own-ai-agents/", "date": "2026-07-08", "title": "Prime Intellect raises $130M Series A to help enterprises build their own AI agents", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://www.primeintellect.ai/blog/series-a", "date": "2026-07-08", "title": "$130M Series A to build the open superintelligence stack", "publisher": "Prime Intellect" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "rl", "note": "Open RL environments and decentralized training; models that keep improving in production.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/08/prime-intellect-raises-130m-series-a-to-help-enterprises-build-their-own-ai-agents/", "date": "2026-07-08", "title": "Prime Intellect raises $130M Series A to help enterprises build their own AI agents", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "camp": "llm", "note": "Trains open models (INTELLECT series) on distributed compute.", "primary": false, "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.primeintellect.ai/blog/series-a", "date": "2026-07-08", "title": "$130M Series A to build the open superintelligence stack", "publisher": "Prime Intellect" } ] } ], "summary": "Open RL stack on distributed compute.", "logo": "assets/logos/prime-intellect.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.primeintellect.ai/blog/series-a", "date": "2026-07-08", "title": "$130M Series A to build the open superintelligence stack", "publisher": "Prime Intellect" } ] }, { "slug": "prometheus", "name": "Prometheus", "domain": "prometheus.ai", "hq": "Seattle", "founded": "2025-11", "explainer": "Jeff Bezos's second company, co-led with Vik Bajaj. It wants an 'artificial general engineer': software that designs, simulates and manufactures physical products, from jet engines to drug compounds. It raised $12B in June 2026 at about $41B and says it is not a robotics company.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 12000000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "valuation_usd": 41000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2026-06", "investors": [ "Jeff Bezos", "JPMorgan", "BlackRock", "Goldman Sachs", "DST Global", "Arch Venture Partners" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/11/jeff-bezoss-prometheus-raises-12b-to-build-an-artificial-general-engineer-for-the-physical-world/", "date": "2026-06-11", "title": "Jeff Bezos's Prometheus raises $12B to build an 'artificial general engineer' for the physical world", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://www.axios.com/2026/06/11/prometheus-bezos-industrial-ai", "date": "2026-06-11", "title": "Prometheus, the industrial AI startup from Jeff Bezos, is now worth $41 billion", "publisher": "Axios" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "An 'artificial general engineer' for physical design and manufacturing; $12B at $41B.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/11/jeff-bezoss-prometheus-raises-12b-to-build-an-artificial-general-engineer-for-the-physical-world/", "date": "2026-06-11", "title": "Jeff Bezos's Prometheus raises $12B to build an 'artificial general engineer' for the physical world", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ], "strand": "simulator-first" } ], "summary": "Bezos's $41B bet on AI that engineers physical things.", "logo": "assets/logos/prometheus.jpg", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/11/jeff-bezoss-prometheus-raises-12b-to-build-an-artificial-general-engineer-for-the-physical-world/", "date": "2026-06-11", "title": "Jeff Bezos's Prometheus raises $12B to build an 'artificial general engineer' for the physical world", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "radical-ai", "name": "Radical AI", "domain": "radical-ai.com", "hq": "Brooklyn", "founded": "2024", "explainer": "Radical AI runs autonomous materials labs at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, backed by a $55M seed led by RTX Ventures with Nvidia and Eni. It holds Air Force work on alloys for hypersonic flight.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 55000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2025-09", "investors": [ "RTX Ventures", "NVentures", "Eni", "AlleyCorp" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-celebrates-radical-ai-establishing-new-yorks-first-fully-autonomous-materials", "date": "2026-01-27", "title": "Governor Hochul celebrates Radical AI establishing New York's first fully autonomous materials science labs", "publisher": "New York State" }, { "url": "https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/15/1129210/ai-materials-science-discovery-startups-investment/", "date": "2025-12-15", "title": "AI materials discovery now needs to move into the real world | MIT Technology Review", "publisher": "MIT Technology Review" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "Self-driving materials labs in Brooklyn; $55M seed.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-celebrates-radical-ai-establishing-new-yorks-first-fully-autonomous-materials", "date": "2026-01-27", "title": "Governor Hochul celebrates Radical AI establishing New York's first fully autonomous materials science labs", "publisher": "New York State" } ], "strand": "lab-in-the-loop" } ], "summary": "Autonomous materials labs in Brooklyn.", "logo": "assets/logos/radical-ai.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/15/1129210/ai-materials-science-discovery-startups-investment/", "date": "2025-12-15", "title": "AI materials discovery now needs to move into the real world | MIT Technology Review", "publisher": "MIT Technology Review" } ] }, { "slug": "rai-institute", "name": "RAI Institute", "domain": "rai-inst.com", "hq": "Cambridge, MA", "founded": "2022-08", "explainer": "The Robotics and AI Institute, founded by Marc Raibert with Hyundai backing in 2022, works on athletic and cognitive AI for robots and partners with Boston Dynamics.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Athletic and cognitive AI for robots; Hyundai-backed; partners with Boston Dynamics.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://rai-inst.com/about/leadership/marc-raibert/", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Marc Raibert | RAI Institute", "publisher": "RAI Institute" } ] } ], "summary": "Raibert's Hyundai-backed research institute.", "logo": "assets/logos/rai-institute.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://rai-inst.com/about/leadership/marc-raibert/", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Marc Raibert | RAI Institute", "publisher": "RAI Institute" } ] }, { "slug": "recursion", "name": "Recursion", "domain": "recursion.com", "ticker": "NASDAQ:RXRX", "hq": "Salt Lake City", "founded": "2013", "explainer": "A listed AI drug-discovery company. With MIT it released Boltz-2 in June 2025, an open model that predicts binding affinity about a thousand times faster than physics-based free-energy methods.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "phys", "note": "Boltz-2 open binding-affinity model; a listed pure play.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/06/06/3095179/0/en/MIT-and-Recursion-Release-Boltz-2-Next-Generation-AI-Model-to-Predict-Binding-Affinity-at-Unprecedented-Speed-Scale-and-Accuracy.html", "date": "2025-06-06", "title": "MIT and Recursion release Boltz-2", "publisher": "GlobeNewswire" } ], "strand": "lab-in-the-loop" } ], "summary": "Listed AI drug discovery; Boltz-2.", "logo": "assets/logos/recursion.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/06/06/3095179/0/en/MIT-and-Recursion-Release-Boltz-2-Next-Generation-AI-Model-to-Predict-Binding-Affinity-at-Unprecedented-Speed-Scale-and-Accuracy.html", "date": "2025-06-06", "title": "MIT and Recursion release Boltz-2", "publisher": "GlobeNewswire" } ] }, { "slug": "reflection-ai", "name": "Reflection AI", "domain": "reflection.ai", "hq": "New York", "founded": "2024-03", "explainer": "Founded by two ex-DeepMind researchers, Reflection raised $2B at $8B in October 2025 to be an American open-weight frontier lab, with Nvidia as its largest backer. Its models are aimed at coding agents.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 2000000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 8000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-10", "investors": [ "Nvidia", "Lightspeed", "Sequoia", "Eric Schmidt" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/09/reflection-raises-2b-to-be-americas-open-frontier-ai-lab-challenging-deepseek", "date": "2025-10-09", "title": "Reflection AI raises $2B to be America's open frontier AI lab, challenging DeepSeek", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "'America's open frontier lab'; $2B at $8B in October 2025.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/09/reflection-raises-2b-to-be-americas-open-frontier-ai-lab-challenging-deepseek", "date": "2025-10-09", "title": "Reflection AI raises $2B to be America's open frontier AI lab, challenging DeepSeek", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Open-weight frontier models for coding agents.", "logo": "assets/logos/reflection-ai.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/09/reflection-raises-2b-to-be-americas-open-frontier-ai-lab-challenging-deepseek", "date": "2025-10-09", "title": "Reflection AI raises $2B to be America's open frontier AI lab, challenging DeepSeek", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "runway", "name": "Runway", "domain": "runwayml.com", "hq": "New York", "founded": "2018", "explainer": "Runway made its name in generative video for film and advertising and now describes itself as a world-model research company. General Atlantic led its $315M Series E at $5.3B in February 2026.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 141000000.0, "kind": "Series C extension", "valuation_usd": 1500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2023-06", "investors": [ "Google", "Nvidia", "Salesforce" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/29/runway-a-startup-building-generative-ai-for-content-creators-raises-141m/", "date": "2023-06-29", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/29/runway-a-startup-building-generative-ai-for-content-creators-raises-141m/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 308000000.0, "kind": "Series D", "valuation_usd": 3000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-04", "investors": [ "General Atlantic", "Fidelity", "Baillie Gifford", "Nvidia", "SoftBank Vision Fund 2" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/03/runway-best-known-for-its-video-generating-models-raises-308m/", "date": "2025-04-03", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/03/runway-best-known-for-its-video-generating-models-raises-308m/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 315000000.0, "kind": "Series E", "valuation_usd": 5300000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-02", "investors": [ "General Atlantic", "Nvidia", "Fidelity", "Adobe Ventures", "AMD Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/10/ai-video-startup-runway-raises-315m-at-5-3b-valuation-eyes-more-capable-world-models/", "date": "2026-02-10", "title": "AI video startup Runway raises $315M at $5.3B valuation, eyes more capable world models", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "Video generation repositioned as world simulation; $5.3B.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/10/ai-video-startup-runway-raises-315m-at-5-3b-valuation-eyes-more-capable-world-models/", "date": "2026-02-10", "title": "AI video startup Runway raises $315M at $5.3B valuation, eyes more capable world models", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Video generation rebranded as world simulation.", "logo": "assets/logos/runway.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/10/ai-video-startup-runway-raises-315m-at-5-3b-valuation-eyes-more-capable-world-models/", "date": "2026-02-10", "title": "AI video startup Runway raises $315M at $5.3B valuation, eyes more capable world models", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "sakana-ai", "name": "Sakana AI", "domain": "sakana.ai", "hq": "Tokyo", "founded": "2023-07", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 30000000.0, "kind": "seed", "date": "2024-01", "investors": [ "Lux Capital", "Khosla Ventures", "NTT" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://sakana.ai/seed-round/", "date": "2024-01-16", "title": "We raised $30M to develop nature-inspired AI in Japan", "publisher": "Sakana AI" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 214000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "valuation_usd": 1500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2024-09", "investors": [ "NEA", "Khosla Ventures", "Lux Capital", "Nvidia", "MUFG", "SMBC", "Mizuho" ], "note": "Reported as over $100M initially, $214M including Japanese corporate investors.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://sakana.ai/series-a/", "date": "2024-09-04", "title": "Announcing our Series A", "publisher": "Sakana AI" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 135000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "valuation_usd": 2650000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-11", "investors": [ "MUFG", "Khosla Ventures", "Macquarie", "NEA", "Lux Capital", "In-Q-Tel" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sakana-ai-raises-135m-series-115207368.html", "date": "2025-11-17", "title": "Sakana AI raises $135M Series B at a $2.65B valuation", "publisher": "TechCrunch via Yahoo Finance" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "rl", "note": "Evolutionary and open-ended search over models.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sakana-ai-raises-135m-series-115207368.html", "date": "2025-11-17", "title": "Sakana AI raises $135M Series B at a $2.65B valuation", "publisher": "TechCrunch via Yahoo Finance" } ] }, { "camp": "alt", "note": "Evolutionary model merging as a non-gradient substrate.", "primary": false, "sources": [ { "url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sakana-ai-raises-135m-series-115207368.html", "date": "2025-11-17", "title": "Sakana AI raises $135M Series B at a $2.65B valuation", "publisher": "TechCrunch via Yahoo Finance" } ] }, { "camp": "phys", "note": "The AI Scientist: automated research loops.", "primary": false, "sources": [ { "url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sakana-ai-raises-135m-series-115207368.html", "date": "2025-11-17", "title": "Sakana AI raises $135M Series B at a $2.65B valuation", "publisher": "TechCrunch via Yahoo Finance" } ], "strand": "lab-in-the-loop" } ], "summary": "Evolutionary model merging and AI Scientist: half experience camp, half substrate camp.", "logo": "assets/logos/sakana-ai.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [], "explainer": "Founded by transformer co-author Llion Jones with David Ha and Ren Ito. Sakana searches over models instead of training one giant one: evolutionary model merging, and the AI Scientist that runs research loops end to end. Raised $135M at $2.65B in November 2025." }, { "slug": "skild-ai", "name": "Skild AI", "domain": "skild.ai", "hq": "Pittsburgh", "founded": "2023", "explainer": "Skild trains one 'Skild Brain' policy across many robot bodies. SoftBank led a $1.4B Series C at more than $14B in January 2026, triple its valuation seven months earlier, with Nvidia, Bezos and strategic backers including LG and Schneider Electric.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 300000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "valuation_usd": 1500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2024-07", "investors": [ "Lightspeed", "Coatue", "SoftBank", "Bezos Expeditions" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.skild.ai/blogs/announcing-our-300m-series-a", "date": "2024-07-09", "title": "Announcing our $300M Series A funding", "publisher": "Skild AI" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 135000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "valuation_usd": 4500000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2025-06", "investors": [ "SoftBank", "Nvidia", "Samsung" ], "note": "SoftBank $100M, Nvidia $25M, Samsung $10M reported.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-samsung-back-4-5b-203049332.html", "date": "2025-06-16", "title": "Nvidia and Samsung back $4.5B robotics startup Skild AI", "publisher": "Yahoo Finance" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 1400000000.0, "kind": "Series C", "valuation_usd": 14000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-01", "investors": [ "SoftBank", "NVentures", "Macquarie", "1789 Capital", "Bezos Expeditions", "Lightspeed", "Sequoia", "LG", "Schneider Electric", "Salesforce Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/14/robotic-software-maker-skild-ai-hits-14b-valuation/", "date": "2026-01-14", "title": "Robotics software maker Skild AI hits $14B valuation", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://www.skild.ai/blogs/series-c", "date": "2026-01-14", "title": "Announcing Series C | Skild AI", "publisher": "Skild AI" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Cross-embodiment 'robot brain'; $14B in January 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/14/robotic-software-maker-skild-ai-hits-14b-valuation/", "date": "2026-01-14", "title": "Robotics software maker Skild AI hits $14B valuation", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Cross-embodiment 'robot brain'; S1 learns a task from one video (August 2026).", "logo": "assets/logos/skild-ai.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.skild.ai/blogs/series-c", "date": "2026-01-14", "title": "Announcing Series C | Skild AI", "publisher": "Skild AI" }, { "url": "https://skild.ai/blogs/s1", "date": "2026-08-25", "title": "Introducing S1: In-Context Learning for Robotics", "publisher": "Skild AI" }, { "url": "https://www.therobotreport.com/skild-ai-unveils-s1-flagship-robot-foundation-model/", "date": "2026-08-31", "title": "Skild AI unveils S1 flagship robot foundation model", "publisher": "The Robot Report" } ], "status_note": "S1, announced 2026-08-25: a robot foundation model that takes a single human video as its prompt and performs unseen ten-minute tasks with no fine-tuning; Skild reports 66% success against 9% for the baseline." }, { "slug": "spinncloud", "name": "SpiNNcloud Systems", "domain": "spinncloud.com", "hq": "Dresden", "founded": "2021", "explainer": "Spun out of TU Dresden around the SpiNNaker2 chip; its Dresden supercomputer runs 35,000 of them. Selected for the EU's EIC Accelerator with €10M in blended funding in June 2025.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 10800000.0, "kind": "grant and equity", "date": "2025-06", "investors": [ "European Innovation Council" ], "note": "€10M blended funding.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.spinlab.co/news/spinncloud-secures-10-million-blended-funding-eic", "date": "2025-06-30", "title": "SpiNNcloud secures €10 million blended funding", "publisher": "SpinLab" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "SpiNNaker2 neuromorphic supercomputers.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.spinlab.co/news/spinncloud-secures-10-million-blended-funding-eic", "date": "2025-06-30", "title": "SpiNNcloud secures €10 million blended funding", "publisher": "SpinLab" } ] } ], "summary": "SpiNNaker2 neuromorphic systems.", "logo": "assets/logos/spinncloud.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.spinlab.co/news/spinncloud-secures-10-million-blended-funding-eic", "date": "2025-06-30", "title": "SpiNNcloud secures €10 million blended funding", "publisher": "SpinLab" } ] }, { "slug": "ssi", "name": "Safe Superintelligence", "domain": "ssi.inc", "hq": "Palo Alto and Tel Aviv", "founded": "2024-06", "explainer": "Safe Superintelligence has one stated goal and no product. It has raised about $8B across three rounds, most recently $5B from Nvidia in July 2026 with priority access to Vera Rubin hardware, and had shipped nothing public as of August 2026.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 1000000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 5000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2024-09", "investors": [ "Andreessen Horowitz", "Sequoia", "DST Global", "SV Angel" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/hjfywdtajl", "date": "2025-04-13", "title": "Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence raises $2B at $32B valuation, with no product yet", "publisher": "CTech" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 2000000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 32000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-04", "investors": [ "Greenoaks", "Andreessen Horowitz", "Lightspeed", "DST Global" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/hjfywdtajl", "date": "2025-04-13", "title": "Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence raises $2B at $32B valuation, with no product yet", "publisher": "CTech" }, { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/12/openai-co-founder-ilya-sutskevers-safe-superintelligence-reportedly-valued-at-32b", "date": "2025-04-12", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/12/openai-co-founder-ilya-sutskevers-safe-superintelligence-reportedly-valued-at-32b", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 5000000000.0, "kind": "strategic investment", "date": "2026-07", "investors": [ "Nvidia" ], "note": "Includes priority access to Vera Rubin hardware.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/27/ilya-sutskevers-safe-superintelligence-partners-with-nvidia-to-scale-its-ai-research/", "date": "2026-07-27", "title": "Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence partners with Nvidia to scale its AI research", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Straight shot, no products. Nvidia put in $5B in July 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/27/ilya-sutskevers-safe-superintelligence-partners-with-nvidia-to-scale-its-ai-research/", "date": "2026-07-27", "title": "Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence partners with Nvidia to scale its AI research", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Straight shot, no products.", "logo": null, "logo_source": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/27/ilya-sutskevers-safe-superintelligence-partners-with-nvidia-to-scale-its-ai-research/", "date": "2026-07-27", "title": "Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence partners with Nvidia to scale its AI research", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "slug": "symbolica", "name": "Symbolica", "domain": "symbolica.ai", "hq": "San Francisco and London", "founded": "2022", "explainer": "Applies category theory to build models that do structured reasoning rather than pattern matching. Raised $31M from Khosla in 2024, $35M in total.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 31000000.0, "kind": "Series A", "date": "2024-04", "investors": [ "Khosla Ventures" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.maginative.com/article/symbolica-raises-31m-to-redesign-ai-with-structured-reasoning/", "date": "2024-04-09", "title": "Symbolica raises $31M to redesign AI with structured reasoning", "publisher": "Maginative" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Category-theoretic structured models; $35M.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.maginative.com/article/symbolica-raises-31m-to-redesign-ai-with-structured-reasoning/", "date": "2024-04-09", "title": "Symbolica raises $31M to redesign AI with structured reasoning", "publisher": "Maginative" } ] } ], "summary": "Category-theoretic structured models.", "logo": "assets/logos/symbolica.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.maginative.com/article/symbolica-raises-31m-to-redesign-ai-with-structured-reasoning/", "date": "2024-04-09", "title": "Symbolica raises $31M to redesign AI with structured reasoning", "publisher": "Maginative" } ] }, { "slug": "tesla", "name": "Tesla (Optimus)", "domain": "tesla.com", "ticker": "NASDAQ:TSLA", "hq": "Austin", "explainer": "Tesla is building Optimus as a vertically integrated humanoid with a driving-style data flywheel. Its 2025 target of 10,000 units was missed entirely; Musk said in January 2026 that none were doing useful work, and production at Fremont was due to start slowly in summer 2026.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Optimus: vertically integrated humanoid. Production slipped to summer 2026; 2025 targets missed.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://electrek.co/2026/04/22/tesla-optimus-production-fremont-model-sx-line/", "date": "2026-04-22", "title": "Tesla pushes Optimus V3 reveal later this year - again", "publisher": "Electrek" } ] } ], "summary": "Vertically integrated humanoid, FSD-style data flywheel.", "logo": "assets/logos/tesla.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://electrek.co/2026/04/22/tesla-optimus-production-fremont-model-sx-line/", "date": "2026-04-22", "title": "Tesla pushes Optimus V3 reveal later this year - again", "publisher": "Electrek" } ] }, { "slug": "thinking-machines", "name": "Thinking Machines Lab", "domain": "thinkingmachines.ai", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2025-02", "explainer": "Mira Murati's lab raised the largest seed round on record, $2B at $12B, in July 2025, and sells post-training tooling (Tinker) rather than a chatbot. A $50B round it sought in late 2025 fell through; as of September 2026 it is in talks at about $40B.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 2000000000.0, "kind": "seed", "valuation_usd": 12000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2025-07", "investors": [ "Andreessen Horowitz", "Nvidia", "Accel", "ServiceNow", "Cisco", "AMD", "Jane Street" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/15/mira-muratis-thinking-machines-lab-is-worth-12b-in-seed-round/", "date": "2025-07-15", "title": "Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab is worth $12B in seed round", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 2500000000, "kind": "talks", "date": "2026-09-04", "valuation_usd": 40000000000, "valuation_kind": "reported", "investors": [ "NVIDIA", "Accel" ], "contested": true, "note": "Reports differ: at least $1B led by Accel at $40B, or $5B to $6B with NVIDIA providing about $2.5B. Nothing announced.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/nvidia-in-talks-to-invest-25-bln-in-thinking-machines-lab--the-information-4888766", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Nvidia in talks to invest $2.5 bln in Thinking Machines Lab - The Information", "publisher": "Investing.com" }, { "url": "https://www.inc.com/kevin-haynes/nvidia-may-put-2-5-billion-into-thinking-machines-valuing-the-startup-at-40-billion/91401970", "date": "2026-09-05", "title": "Nvidia May Put $2.5 Billion Into Thinking Machines Lab, Valuing the Startup at $40 Billion", "publisher": "Inc." } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Post-training and fine-tuning as the product. $2B seed at $12B; seeking ~$40B in September 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/15/mira-muratis-thinking-machines-lab-is-worth-12b-in-seed-round/", "date": "2025-07-15", "title": "Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab is worth $12B in seed round", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/thinking-machines-lab-seeks-40-billion-dollar-valuation", "date": "2026-09-03", "title": "Thinking Machines Lab seeks $1 billion at $40 billion valuation", "publisher": "PYMNTS" } ] } ], "summary": "Post-training and fine-tuning as the product.", "logo": "assets/logos/thinking-machines.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/15/mira-muratis-thinking-machines-lab-is-worth-12b-in-seed-round/", "date": "2025-07-15", "title": "Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab is worth $12B in seed round", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/thinking-machines-lab-seeks-40-billion-dollar-valuation", "date": "2026-09-03", "title": "Thinking Machines Lab seeks $1 billion at $40 billion valuation", "publisher": "PYMNTS" } ], "status_note": "In talks in September 2026 to raise at a reported $40B valuation, up from $12B in July 2025; NVIDIA reportedly the anchor." }, { "slug": "toyota-research-institute", "name": "Toyota Research Institute", "domain": "tri.global", "parent": null, "hq": "Los Altos, California", "founded": "2015", "explainer": "Toyota's research arm trains Large Behavior Models: one diffusion policy that learns hundreds of manipulation tasks with about 80% less data per new task. It co-develops policies for Boston Dynamics' Atlas.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Large Behavior Models; policies for Boston Dynamics Atlas.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.tri.global/news/tri-pretrained-large-behavior-models-accelerate-robot-learning", "date": "2025-07-14", "title": "TRI: pretrained large behavior models accelerate robot learning", "publisher": "Toyota Research Institute" } ] } ], "summary": "Large Behavior Models for manipulation.", "logo": "assets/logos/toyota-research-institute.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.tri.global/news/tri-pretrained-large-behavior-models-accelerate-robot-learning", "date": "2025-07-14", "title": "TRI: pretrained large behavior models accelerate robot learning", "publisher": "Toyota Research Institute" } ] }, { "slug": "tufa-labs", "name": "Tufa Labs", "domain": "tufalabs.ai", "hq": "Zurich", "explainer": "A Zurich lab dedicated to ARC. Placed third in ARC Prize 2025 and won the first ARC-AGI-3 milestone prize in July 2026.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "ARC-focused lab; won ARC-AGI-3 milestone 1 (July 2026).", "sources": [ { "url": "https://arcprize.org/blog/arc-prize-2026-milestone-1", "date": "2026-07-06", "title": "ARC Prize 2026: ARC-AGI-3 Milestone Prize #1", "publisher": "ARC Prize" } ] } ], "summary": "Zurich lab built around ARC.", "logo": "assets/logos/tufa-labs.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://arcprize.org/blog/arc-prize-2026-milestone-1", "date": "2026-07-06", "title": "ARC Prize 2026: ARC-AGI-3 Milestone Prize #1", "publisher": "ARC Prize" } ] }, { "slug": "ubtech", "name": "UBTech Robotics", "domain": "ubtrobot.com", "ticker": "HKEX:9880", "hq": "Shenzhen", "founded": "2012", "explainer": "Listed in Hong Kong since 2023, UBTech was the first to deliver industrial humanoids at volume: more than a thousand full-size units in 2025 and a Walker S2 order book above 800 million yuan, with a target of 5,000 units in 2026.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Walker S2 humanoids in mass production; the largest delivered fleet.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ubtech-humanoid-robot-walker-s2-begins-mass-production-and-delivery-with-orders-exceeding-800-million-yuan-302616924.html", "date": "2025-11-20", "title": "UBTECH humanoid robot Walker S2 begins mass production and delivery, with orders exceeding 800 million yuan", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ] } ], "summary": "Listed humanoid maker with the largest delivered fleet.", "logo": "assets/logos/ubtech.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ubtech-humanoid-robot-walker-s2-begins-mass-production-and-delivery-with-orders-exceeding-800-million-yuan-302616924.html", "date": "2025-11-20", "title": "UBTECH humanoid robot Walker S2 begins mass production and delivery, with orders exceeding 800 million yuan", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ] }, { "slug": "unitree", "name": "Unitree", "domain": "unitree.com", "ticker": "SSE:688836", "hq": "Hangzhou", "founded": "2016", "explainer": "Unitree made legged robots cheap enough for every lab to own one. It listed on Shanghai's STAR Market on August 19, 2026, priced at about $9B and closing its first day up 460% at roughly $47B, the first humanoid maker listed in mainland China.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 140000000.0, "kind": "Series B2", "date": "2024-02", "investors": [ "Meituan", "Jinshi Investment", "Source Code Capital" ], "note": "Nearly 1 billion yuan.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://equalocean.com/news/2024022620539-1-billion-cny-intelligent-robot-company-unitree-completed-b2-round-financing", "date": "2024-02-26", "title": "1 Billion CNY! Unitree completed B2 round of financing", "publisher": "EqualOcean" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 900000000.0, "kind": "ipo", "valuation_usd": 9000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2026-08", "note": "Priced ¥150.80/share (~¥61B valuation); first-day close +460%.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://english.sse.com.cn/news/newsrelease/voice/c/c_20260806_10828128.shtml", "date": "2026-08-06", "title": "Unitree Robotics kicks off STAR Market IPO pricing, expected to exceed $5.9 billion in value", "publisher": "Shanghai Stock Exchange / Global Times" }, { "url": "https://kraneshares.com/a-complete-guide-to-unitree-robotics-2026-ipo-why-it-matters-for-star-market-etf-kstr-humanoid-robotics-etf-koid/", "date": "2026-08-20", "title": "A complete guide to Unitree Robotics' 2026 IPO", "publisher": "KraneShares" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "robot", "note": "Cheap hardware that made the field affordable; STAR Market IPO August 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://english.sse.com.cn/news/newsrelease/voice/c/c_20260806_10828128.shtml", "date": "2026-08-06", "title": "Unitree Robotics kicks off STAR Market IPO pricing, expected to exceed $5.9 billion in value", "publisher": "Shanghai Stock Exchange / Global Times" } ] } ], "summary": "Cheap hardware that made the field affordable.", "logo": "assets/logos/unitree.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://english.sse.com.cn/news/newsrelease/voice/c/c_20260806_10828128.shtml", "date": "2026-08-06", "title": "Unitree Robotics kicks off STAR Market IPO pricing, expected to exceed $5.9 billion in value", "publisher": "Shanghai Stock Exchange / Global Times" } ] }, { "slug": "veeda-ai", "name": "Veeda AI", "domain": "veeda.ai", "hq": "Toronto", "founded": "2026", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 90000000, "kind": "seed", "date": "2026-08-19", "investors": [ "Radical Ventures", "Khosla Ventures" ], "note": "Co-led; reported as over $90M.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/08/19/sanja-fidlers-world-model-startup-veeda-ai-raises-90m-in-seed-funding/", "date": "2026-08-19", "title": "Sanja Fidler's world model startup Veeda AI raises $90M in seed funding", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" }, { "url": "https://www.unite.ai/veeda-ai-raises-90m-seed-backed-by-khosla-and-radical-to-build-world-models-for-physical-ai/", "date": "2026-08-19", "title": "Veeda AI Raises $90M+ Seed Backed by Khosla and Radical to Build World Models for Physical AI", "publisher": "Unite.AI" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "World models as simulators to train physical AI in, 'the Matrix' for robots", "primary": true, "from": "2026-08", "to": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/08/19/sanja-fidlers-world-model-startup-veeda-ai-raises-90m-in-seed-funding/", "date": "2026-08-19", "title": "Sanja Fidler's world model startup Veeda AI raises $90M in seed funding", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] } ], "summary": "Sanja Fidler's world-model startup: simulated worlds to train robots in; $90M seed.", "explainer": "Founded in 2026 by Sanja Fidler after she left NVIDIA, where she ran the Spatial Intelligence Lab behind its Cosmos world model, with Zan Gojcic (CTO) and Huan Ling (chief scientist). The bet is the generative branch of camp 2 pointed at robots: build multimodal world models that simulate physical reality well enough that embodied agents can learn inside them at unlimited scale, instead of collecting teleoperation data. The $90M seed, co-led by Radical Ventures and Khosla Ventures, is among the largest seed rounds in the camp.", "logo": "assets/logos/veeda-ai.png", "logo_source": "homepage-icon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/08/19/sanja-fidlers-world-model-startup-veeda-ai-raises-90m-in-seed-funding/", "date": "2026-08-19", "title": "Sanja Fidler's world model startup Veeda AI raises $90M in seed funding", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ] }, { "slug": "verses", "name": "Verses", "domain": "verses.ai", "ticker": "CBOE:VERS", "hq": "Los Angeles", "founded": "2018", "explainer": "A listed company (Cboe Canada: VERS) whose Genius platform applies Karl Friston's active inference to decisions under uncertainty. Friston is chief scientist under a renewed contract.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "alt", "note": "Active inference agents (Genius); publicly listed.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/12/23/3001222/0/en/VERSES-Renews-Agreement-with-Chief-Scientist-Karl-Friston-to-Continue-Innovation.html", "date": "2024-12-23", "title": "VERSES renews agreement with chief scientist Karl Friston", "publisher": "GlobeNewswire" } ] } ], "summary": "Active inference agents.", "logo": "assets/logos/verses.jpg", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/12/23/3001222/0/en/VERSES-Renews-Agreement-with-Chief-Scientist-Karl-Friston-to-Continue-Innovation.html", "date": "2024-12-23", "title": "VERSES renews agreement with chief scientist Karl Friston", "publisher": "GlobeNewswire" } ] }, { "slug": "waabi", "name": "Waabi", "domain": "waabi.ai", "hq": "Toronto", "founded": "2021", "explainer": "Raquel Urtasun's Waabi trains its driving system almost entirely in a learned simulator and then deploys driverless trucks with Volvo. It raised more than $750M at $3B in January 2026 to add robotaxis on Uber's network.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 200000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "date": "2024-06", "investors": [ "Uber", "Khosla Ventures", "Nvidia", "Volvo Group", "Porsche" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/18/uber-khosla-nvidia-invest-in-autonomous-trucking-startup-waabi.html", "date": "2024-06-18", "title": "https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/18/uber-khosla-nvidia-invest-in-autonomous-trucking-startup-waabi.html", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 750000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "valuation_usd": 3000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-01", "investors": [ "Khosla Ventures", "G2 Venture Partners", "Uber" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/28/autonomous-startup-waabi-raises-750-million-to-expand-into-robotaxis.html", "date": "2026-01-28", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "Simulation-first autonomous trucking, now robotaxis with Uber.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/28/autonomous-startup-waabi-raises-750-million-to-expand-into-robotaxis.html", "date": "2026-01-28", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] } ], "summary": "Simulation-first autonomous trucking.", "logo": "assets/logos/waabi.jpg", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/28/autonomous-startup-waabi-raises-750-million-to-expand-into-robotaxis.html", "date": "2026-01-28", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] }, { "slug": "wayve", "name": "Wayve", "domain": "wayve.ai", "hq": "London", "founded": "2017", "explainer": "Wayve trains end-to-end driving policies and generative driving world models (its GAIA line) rather than hand-coded stacks. Its $1.2B Series D in February 2026 valued it at $8.6B, with Microsoft, Nvidia and Uber participating; Nissan will ship its software from 2027.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 200000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "date": "2022-01", "investors": [ "Eclipse", "D1 Capital", "Baillie Gifford", "Microsoft", "Virgin", "Balderton" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://wayve.ai/press/wayve-announces-200-million-in-funding-to-accelerate-the-development-of-av2-0-the-next-wave-of-autonomous-vehicles/", "date": "2022-01-18", "title": "Wayve announces $200 million in funding to accelerate the development of AV2.0", "publisher": "Wayve" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 1050000000.0, "kind": "Series C", "date": "2024-05", "investors": [ "SoftBank" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://wayve.ai/press/series-c/", "date": "2024-05-07", "title": "Wayve raises over $1 billion led by SoftBank", "publisher": "Wayve" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 1200000000.0, "kind": "Series D", "valuation_usd": 8600000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-02", "investors": [ "Eclipse", "Balderton", "SoftBank Vision Fund 2", "Microsoft", "Nvidia", "Uber" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/24/wayve-fundraise-nvidia-microsoft.html", "date": "2026-02-24", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" }, { "url": "https://wayve.ai/press/series-d/", "date": "2026-02-24", "title": "Wayve secures $1.5B to deploy its global autonomy platform", "publisher": "Wayve" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "End-to-end driving with generative world models; $8.6B in February 2026.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/24/wayve-fundraise-nvidia-microsoft.html", "date": "2026-02-24", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] } ], "summary": "End-to-end driving with generative world models.", "logo": "assets/logos/wayve.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://wayve.ai/press/series-d/", "date": "2026-02-24", "title": "Wayve secures $1.5B to deploy its global autonomy platform", "publisher": "Wayve" }, { "url": "https://wayve.ai/press/wayve-uber-launch-autonomous-rides/", "date": "2026-09-03", "title": "Wayve and Uber Launch First-Ever Autonomous Rides in the UK", "publisher": "Wayve" }, { "url": "https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-details/2026/Wayve-and-Uber-Launch-First-Ever-Autonomous-Rides-in-the-UK-2026-VoFQI1WbQi/default.aspx", "date": "2026-09-03", "title": "Wayve and Uber Launch First-Ever Autonomous Rides in the UK", "publisher": "Uber" } ], "status_note": "First commercial service: supervised autonomous Uber rides in London from 2026-09-03, fewer than 20 cars at launch, safety operator on board; Tokyo pilot with Nissan planned for late 2026." }, { "slug": "world-labs", "name": "World Labs", "domain": "worldlabs.ai", "hq": "San Francisco", "founded": "2024", "explainer": "Fei-Fei Li's World Labs builds spatial models: Marble turns images, video or text into persistent 3D worlds. It raised $1B in February 2026, including $200M from Autodesk, which wants world models inside its design tools.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 230000000.0, "kind": "seed and Series A", "valuation_usd": 1000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2024-09", "investors": [ "Andreessen Horowitz", "NEA", "Radical Ventures", "NVentures" ], "note": "Raised over two rounds; valuation reported above $1B.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/13/fei-fei-lis-world-labs-comes-out-of-stealth-with-230m-in-funding/", "date": "2024-09-13", "title": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/13/fei-fei-lis-world-labs-comes-out-of-stealth-with-230m-in-funding/", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 1000000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "date": "2026-02", "investors": [ "Autodesk", "AMD", "Nvidia", "Emerson Collective", "Fidelity", "Sea" ], "note": "Autodesk put in $200M and is an adviser. Bloomberg reported a ~$5B valuation in talks; not confirmed.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/18/world-labs-lands-200m-from-autodesk-to-bring-world-models-into-3d-workflows/", "date": "2026-02-18", "title": "TechCrunch", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "wm", "note": "Marble: 3D worlds from images and text. $1B, Feb 2026.", "from": "2024", "to": null, "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/18/world-labs-lands-200m-from-autodesk-to-bring-world-models-into-3d-workflows/", "date": "2026-02-18", "title": "TechCrunch", "publisher": "TechCrunch" } ] } ], "summary": "Marble, then Atlas (September 2026): 3D worlds from images, text and video. $1B, Feb 2026.", "logo": "assets/logos/world-labs.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/18/world-labs-lands-200m-from-autodesk-to-bring-world-models-into-3d-workflows/", "date": "2026-02-18", "title": "TechCrunch", "publisher": "TechCrunch" }, { "url": "https://www.worldlabs.ai/blog/atlas", "date": "2026-09-01", "title": "Atlas: A World Model for Spatial Intelligence", "publisher": "World Labs" }, { "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/01/fei-fei-lis-world-labs-debuts-atlas-a-world-model-showcase-for-advanced-spatial-intelligence/", "date": "2026-09-01", "title": "Fei-Fei Li's World Labs debuts Atlas", "publisher": "SiliconANGLE" } ], "status_note": "Released Atlas on 2026-09-01: an 'omni' world model pretrained on text, images, video and 3D that outputs camera-controlled video up to 1440p, depth, point clouds and Gaussian splats; the stated target is robot training simulations captured from a phone." }, { "slug": "xai", "name": "xAI (SpaceX AI division)", "domain": "x.ai", "ticker": "NASDAQ:SPCX", "parent": null, "status": "merged", "status_note": "Acquired by SpaceX in an all-stock deal on 2026-02-02 at a $250B valuation; SpaceX listed on Nasdaq as SPCX on 2026-06-12. xAI no longer exists as a separate company.", "hq": "Palo Alto", "founded": "2023-03", "explainer": "xAI built Grok on a compute-maximalist strategy and burned more than $12B a year doing it. In February 2026 SpaceX absorbed it in an all-stock merger valuing the combined company at $1.25T, and SpaceX went public in June, raising $75B in the largest IPO on record. Grok and X are now the AI division of a listed company.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 6000000000.0, "kind": "Series B", "valuation_usd": 24000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2024-05", "investors": [ "Valor Equity Partners", "Vy Capital", "Andreessen Horowitz", "Sequoia", "Fidelity" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://x.ai/news/series-b", "date": "2024-05-26", "title": "xAI Series B funding round", "publisher": "xAI" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 6000000000.0, "kind": "Series C", "valuation_usd": 50000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2024-12", "investors": [ "Andreessen Horowitz", "BlackRock", "Fidelity", "Nvidia", "AMD", "Sequoia", "Valor" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://x.ai/news/series-c", "date": "2024-12-23", "title": "xAI raises $6B Series C", "publisher": "xAI" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 5000000000.0, "kind": "debt and equity", "date": "2025-07", "investors": [ "Morgan Stanley (debt)" ], "note": "$5B of equity counted here; a further $5B was debt arranged by Morgan Stanley.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/01/elon-musk-xai-raises-10-billion-in-debt-and-equity.html", "date": "2025-07-01", "title": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/01/elon-musk-xai-raises-10-billion-in-debt-and-equity.html", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 20000000000.0, "kind": "Series E", "valuation_usd": 230000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "post-money", "date": "2026-01", "investors": [ "Nvidia", "Valor", "Fidelity", "QIA" ], "sources": [ { "url": "https://x.ai/news/series-e", "date": "2026-01-06", "title": "xAI raises $20B Series E", "publisher": "xAI" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 250000000000.0, "kind": "merger", "valuation_usd": 1250000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2026-02", "investors": [ "SpaceX" ], "note": "All-stock acquisition by SpaceX; combined company valued at $1.25T.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/03/musk-xai-spacex-biggest-merger-ever.html", "date": "2026-02-03", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 75000000000.0, "kind": "ipo", "valuation_usd": 1770000000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2026-06", "note": "SpaceX IPO at $135/share, first-day close $161.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/12/spacex-ipo-spcx-live-updates.html", "date": "2026-06-12", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "Grok. Compute-maximalist. Folded into SpaceX in 2026; publicly traded via SPCX.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/03/musk-xai-spacex-biggest-merger-ever.html", "date": "2026-02-03", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" }, { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/12/spacex-ipo-spcx-live-updates.html", "date": "2026-06-12", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ], "from": "2023-03", "to": null } ], "summary": "Grok. Compute-maximalist.", "logo": "assets/logos/xai.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/03/musk-xai-spacex-biggest-merger-ever.html", "date": "2026-02-03", "title": "CNBC", "publisher": "CNBC" } ] }, { "slug": "xiaomi-mimo", "name": "Xiaomi MiMo", "domain": "mimo.xiaomi.com", "ticker": "HKEX:1810", "hq": "Beijing", "founded": "2024", "explainer": "Xiaomi's model group released MiMo-V2.5-Pro as open weights: a trillion-parameter mixture-of-experts model with 42B active parameters and a one-million-token context.", "capital": [], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "MiMo-V2.5-Pro: open-weight 1T MoE from a phone company.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaomi_MiMo", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Xiaomi MiMo", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] } ], "summary": "Open-weight 1T MoE from a phone company.", "logo": "assets/logos/xiaomi-mimo.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaomi_MiMo", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Xiaomi MiMo", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] }, { "slug": "zhipu", "name": "Z.ai (Zhipu)", "domain": "z.ai", "ticker": "HKEX:2513", "hq": "Beijing", "founded": "2019-06", "explainer": "Zhipu, now Z.ai, spun out of Tsinghua and builds the GLM models. On January 8, 2026 it became the first large-language-model company listed anywhere, at about HK$53B on the Hong Kong exchange.", "capital": [ { "amount_usd": 412000000.0, "kind": "funding round", "date": "2024-12", "investors": [ "Hangzhou state funds" ], "note": "3 billion yuan from state-backed investors.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3291201/chinese-start-zhipu-ai-raises-us412-million-new-funding-amid-crowded-market", "date": "2024-12-17", "title": "Chinese start-up Zhipu AI raises US$412 million in new funding", "publisher": "South China Morning Post" } ] }, { "amount_usd": 0, "kind": "ipo", "valuation_usd": 6800000000.0, "valuation_kind": "reported", "date": "2026-01", "note": "Listed HKEX 2513 at HK$116.20; market cap HK$52.83B at open. Proceeds not recorded here.", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chinas-agi-pioneer-and-leader-zai-listed-on-hong-kong-stock-exchange-302656265.html", "date": "2026-01-08", "title": "Z.ai listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange", "publisher": "PR Newswire" } ] } ], "camps": [ { "camp": "llm", "note": "GLM models; first listed LLM company (HKEX, January 2026).", "sources": [ { "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chinas-agi-pioneer-and-leader-zai-listed-on-hong-kong-stock-exchange-302656265.html", "date": "2026-01-08", "title": "Z.ai listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange", "publisher": "PR Newswire" }, { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z.ai", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Z.ai", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] } ], "summary": "GLM models; first listed LLM company.", "logo": "assets/logos/zhipu.png", "logo_source": "google-favicon", "sources": [ { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z.ai", "date": "2026-09-04", "title": "Z.ai", "publisher": "Wikipedia" } ] } ]