Bedrock Robotics raises $600 million, Physical Intelligence seeks a $20 billion valuation, and more - Robotics Brief #92

In this edition, covering 19 to 27 October:

• Bedrock Robotics raised $600 million at a $4.1 billion valuation for self driving construction equipment, whose excavators have begun paid work.
• Physical Intelligence is discussing a round of at least $1 billion at a valuation of about $20 billion, Bloomberg reports.
• Boston Dynamics will go ahead with a $1.3 million sale of four Spot robots to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement after about 300 employees petitioned against it.

Big rounds

Bedrock Robotics raised $600 million at a $4.1 billion valuation, co led by CapitalG and Emergence Capital, for self driving software for heavy construction equipment. Physical Intelligence is discussing a round of at least $1 billion at about $20 billion, with Avenir and Lux Capital considering leading it, Bloomberg reports. Former OpenAI science lead Kevin Weil launched Warp Sciences, which trains robots to make and test drug compounds, with $215 million. Bedrock Robotics · Physical Intelligence · Warp Sciences

Formic raised $50 million for robots in US manufacturing. Machenta raised a $40 million seed round for a foundation model trained in simulation that it says can learn new tasks from one or two demonstrations, and Maxinsights $30 million for robot training data drawn from footage of more than 5,000 contractors. MoSense raised about RMB 100 million for electronic skin that gives robots touch. Formic · Machenta · Maxinsights · MoSense

Paris based Bleu Robotics raised a €5 million pre seed round led by Contrarian Ventures and OVNI Capital for industrial humanoid robots that it says can be trained for a task in 20 minutes and deployed on a factory line in under an hour. Bleu Robotics

Humanoids

Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock reported that a Figure 03 humanoid walked 348 miles in nine days on a treadmill, a test meant to expose failures over long operation. Unitree Robotics is developing Unitree Rehearsal, an AI system that searches papers, writes code and tests it on physical humanoids. Humanoid maker Noetix Robotics has confidentially filed for a Hong Kong listing, Bloomberg reports. Figure 03 · Unitree · Noetix

Tools and platforms

NVIDIA expanded Cosmos with Data Factory blueprints and tools for training and evaluating world models, used by Porsche and ANYbotics among others. Advantech added functional safety layers to its robot platform. Tokio Marine will start selling insurance for AI powered robots in Japan next month, the first Japanese nonlife insurer to do so. Cosmos · Advantech · Tokio Marine

At an event in Shanghai, AGIBOT introduced Worken, a framework that measures robots' productive work by active robots, autonomous working hours and task output. It also showed the AHA3 hardware platform, launched the G2 Max industrial robot and the Link U OS 1.0 operating system, and pointed to deployments in manufacturing, logistics and visitor services. AGIBOT

NVIDIA described how European retailers use its models and robotics tools, including Otto Group simulating warehouse operations in Germany, Shopify cutting inference costs by 90% and Zooplus reaching 86% search accuracy. NVIDIA in retail

Robots at work

Human Friendly Robotics signed a three year, $3.55 million contract to deploy its Tyler tiling robots with Foley Tile. Tensor and Münchner Taxi Zentrum signed a letter of intent for up to 500 autonomous taxis in German cities. Poseidon Aerospace is developing Egret, a cockpitless cargo drone for up to 4,000 pounds. Singapore's Kabam Robotics will close on 20 November. Human Friendly Robotics · Tensor · Poseidon · Kabam

San Francisco startup Dimensional reportedly offered $20 an hour, with paid training and no robotics experience needed, for shifts walking robot dogs on city streets to collect data for its robot control AI, Fox Business reports. Dimensional

Körber is taking a stake in NAiSE, whose software coordinates automated guided vehicles, mobile robots and manually driven trucks in warehouses and plants; the two will look at more intralogistics uses, including humanoids. NAiSE

Defense and public sector

Boston Dynamics will go ahead with selling four Spot robots to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement after about 300 employees petitioned against it; interim CEO Amanda McMaster cited terms that bar using them for harm or intimidation. Portuguese drone maker Beyond Vision raised more than €28 million, Tiger Global is leading about $20 million for FORT Robotics ahead of its SPAC merger, and Swarmer is buying drone IP from Ukraine's Vataga and hiring its CEO and 14 engineers. Boston Dynamics · Beyond Vision · FORT Robotics · Swarmer

Shield and Leonardo agreed to use Shield's Hivemind software development kit to build autonomy for Leonardo's Proteus uncrewed rotorcraft, for anti submarine warfare, surveillance and contested logistics. Shield and Leonardo

San Bernardino County Fire will deploy five autonomous firefighting aircraft from Seneca, the first California fire agency to do so, with training expected in the first half of 2027. Seneca

South Korea plans to give about 1,700 AI robots to public sector organizations in 2027 for research, security, policing and agriculture. Nine ministries and agencies will work with 11 domestic robot makers, including Rainbow Robotics, Robotis, Hyundai Motor and Newbility. South Korea