Agility Robotics expects $465 million from its merger, Meta reportedly builds a humanoid, and more - Robotics Brief #93

In this edition, covering 29 October to 4 November:

• Agility Robotics expects to raise about $465 million through its merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI, including a $201 million PIPE led by Foxconn.
• Meta and Chinese startup Fourier built a household humanoid prototype called Max and are developing a second version, The Information reports.
• China blocked SoftBank's $5.4 billion purchase of ABB's robotics business over concerns about robotics data leaving the country.

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From our lists

The Humanoid Robot Makers list covers companies that build humanoid robots.

Humanoid Robot Makers

Humanoid robots

Agility Robotics and Churchill Capital Corp XI expect their merger and related financings to raise about $465 million, with Nasdaq trading under AGLT expected on 5 November. Meta and Fourier built a humanoid prototype called Max, about 1.5 meters tall and using Nvidia's Jetson Thor chip, The Information reports; Reuters could not verify the report. Nvidia showed two humanoid training systems with hands from China linked startups Sharpa and Wuji, and research institutions may receive the newer Agile One SN in early 2027. Agility Robotics · Meta and Fourier · Nvidia

Astribot says it reached a RMB 15 billion valuation after four funding rounds and plans to scale production and expand software revenue for its embodied AI robots. Astribot

Physical AI models and data

Scale AI and Hugging Face released FineART, an open robotics dataset of 40,543 episodes and 1,718 hours across 151 tasks, along with a LeRobot model called FineART-VLA. Tutor Intelligence raised a $75 million Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz to train robot foundation models and build its Sonny and Cassie robots, bringing its total funding to $117 million. Beijing based GenRobot AI raised $100 million in a Series A+ round, with SAIC Motor and Baidu among the investors, to expand Matrix, which processes human movement data for robot training. FineART · Tutor Intelligence · GenRobot AI

South Korean motion data startup MOVIN raised a $7.6 million Series A led by IMM Investment; customers of its markerless motion capture include Boston Dynamics and the RAI Institute. OpenRoboto and Vulcan Shield Hungary launched a commercial pilot for collecting and using robotics data in Hungary. MOVIN · OpenRoboto

Xpeng open sourced GroundingPI, a 4 billion parameter perception model it says beats GPT-6 Astra on 34 benchmarks and could cut the demonstration data robots need. Parallel Domain launched PD Forma, which turns real world capture data into simulation ready 4D environments. Xpeng · Parallel Domain

ABB Robotics and NVIDIA launched a physical AI training and certification program built on RobotStudio and Omniverse. ABB and NVIDIA

China Merchants Group's LionRock AI Lab open sourced Lion-ER-35B-A3B, an embodied reasoning vision language model with about 3 billion active parameters. LionRock

Autonomous driving

The Autoware Foundation released Autoware 2.0, which adds end to end AI and hybrid planning modules to its open source autonomous driving software. London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for limits on robotaxi numbers and more powers for Transport for London before fully driverless services expand, citing congestion, air quality and taxi jobs. Autoware 2.0 · London robotaxis

Baidu unveiled Apollo World, a model trained on 217 million miles of Apollo Go fleet data that generates about three years of real world testing per day. Baidu

Drones and drone detection

Ericsson introduced an Integrated Sensing and Communication system that uses existing 5G radios, edge computing and AI to detect and track drones, with commercial pilots planned for 2027. Paris based Gallium Defense raised a €7.1 million seed round led by Keen Venture Partners and 360 Capital for its GDS-10 radar and plans to open orders in the first quarter of 2027. Poland's TOPR mountain rescue service is piloting DJI Dock 4 in the Tatra Mountains, which can launch drones before ground teams arrive. Ericsson · Gallium Defense · TOPR

AutoFlight flew five eVTOL aircraft in an autonomous formation for 47 minutes over 133 kilometers in Kunshan, China. AutoFlight

Factories, construction and deals

China's National Development and Reform Commission blocked SoftBank's $5.4 billion purchase of ABB's robotics business over concerns that robotics data could leave the country for AI training; ABB says it is still talking with SoftBank. SoftBank and ABB

California based Foundry Robotics raised a $100 million Series A led by Marlinspike to expand robotic assembly facilities for products such as unmanned systems, satellites and batteries; its customers include shipbuilder HII. OpenAI plans to use AI controlled robots to build data centres and related infrastructure, CEO Sam Altman said on the Cheeky Pint podcast. Foundry Robotics · OpenAI

Robotics startup Armatrix raised Rs 67.28 crore in a seed round led by Crane Venture Partners, which Entrackr estimates values it at about Rs 360 crore. Amicro, whose chips and software are used by Xiaomi, iRobot and Ecovacs, is offering shares in Hong Kong, with trading expected to begin on 12 November. Armatrix · Amicro

Veteran Ventures Capital led a $6.95 million seed round in Aformic, which makes autonomous mobile robots and fleet software for manufacturing and defense. Aformic

GE HealthCare led up to $160 million in Laza Medical, which builds an AI robotic imaging system for cardiac catheterization labs. Laza Medical

Xiaomi's Beijing car factory runs more than 700 industrial robots and AI quality inspection. Xiaomi

Sinovation Ventures led a round of tens of millions of yuan in Chengdu based RuixinXing, which builds embodied AI robots for picking, loading and material handling. RuixinXing

Homes, ports and cleaning

Syncere raised an $11 million pre seed round led by a16z Speedrun to deliver Lume, a $2,699 floor lamp on a mobile robot that can fold laundry, tidy rooms and make beds. Cargill and Neptune Robotics began an 18 month trial of AI enabled remotely operated systems for hull cleaning and inspection on Cargill vessels calling at the Port of Singapore. Syncere · Cargill and Neptune

Pune based Peppermint Robotics, which makes autonomous cleaning robots, raised Rs 100 crore led by pi Ventures and Crane Venture Partners. Peppermint Robotics

Pudu Robotics will share one AI system across its service, cleaning, industrial and lawn care robots. Pudu

Also

Robots from more than 50 Chinese companies, universities and research groups climbed a 3.9 kilometer course with more than 3,100 steps in a China Media Group competition on Mount Tai. KNAPP has set up a center for robotics and artificial intelligence. Mount Tai · KNAPP

UK startup Shield Space plans swarms of up to 100 autonomous cubesats to protect Western satellites, with a test mission in late 2027. Shield Space

Corridian raised $38 million led by Point72 Ventures to build very large crewless underwater vehicles for military cargo. Corridian