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TypeSafe AI raises $870M in a Series A led by a16Z Andreessen Horowitz at a $7.5B valuation.

The round comes weeks after the company launched Jev, a “System One” AI model that doesn’t generate text. It returns typed, probability based decisions meant for software automation tasks like routing, classification and guardrails.

- Participants include Sequoia Capital and DCVC
- Martin Casado of Andreessen Horowitz joins the board
- Jev launched Sept 15; the company says about a third of the Fortune 500 already use it (self-reported)
- Founded in 2024 by Diogo Almeida, Sasha Sheng and Erik Spock Gafni

Investors are clearly betting that AI built for machines, not just chat, is a growing category. How it performs beyond the early benchmarks remains to be seen.

Source: techcrunch

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10 hours ago

Ultra raises $62M in total funding to scale warehouse robot deployments

The Brooklyn based robotics company announced a $50M Series A led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator.

That brings its total funding to $62M, including an earlier $12M seed led by Y Combinator and NextView.

Ultra leases its robots to warehouses on a monthly “robots as a service” basis, with an upfront integration fee and ongoing hardware and software support. The company says its robots have packed over 500,000 orders across U.S. warehouses.

The announcement also deepens its partnership with Physical Intelligence, which supplies the AI that helps the robots learn and adapt on-site.

Ultra’s stated thesis: deployment, not demos, is the bottleneck in robotics.

Congratulations to Jon Miller Schwartz, Max Friefeld, Chetan Parthiban, Oliver Ortlieb and the Ultra team.

Video Credit: Ultra

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a day ago

Google Cloud has introduced the Gemini agent, a single AI agent built for workplace tasks.

Announced by Thomas Kurian at Gemini at Work 2026, the agent can answer questions, create content, write and run code, and return finished work inside tools like Gmail, Docs and Sheets.

It also works through Microsoft 365 and Slack.

It runs on both Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude models, choosing the best fit for each task. It can also act as a “coworker agent” with its own identity and limited access, and admins can set spending caps.

The agent is currently in private preview, with versions for finance and legal in preview.

It joins a growing field of workplace AI agents from OpenAI and Meta.

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1

a day ago

NVIDIA shares progress on robots that assemble GB300 AI hardware

NVIDIA Robotics’ Seattle Robotics Lab and the Isaac engineering team, working with Foxconn, are automating GB300 tester tray assembly, a task that has relied on skilled factory workers.

- Busbar fastening (16 screws): 95%+ success
- Four connector insertion: 90-95% success
- Target for both: 99.5% success and under 2x human cycle time

The team reports it is still short of production requirements. Next steps are narrowing that gap and deploying in contract-manufacturer factories.

Hardware used: Flexiv Rizon 4S arms, a Universal Robots UR10e, and an OnRobot screwdriver.

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2 days ago

Biohub, the U.S. Department of Energy and NIH are committing $1.8B to build open, AI ready biological data.

Meta, Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs are adding $300M to expand Biohub's Virtual Biology Initiative.

What's committed:
▪️ Biohub: $500M
▪️ DOE: $500M+ over five years for measurement, modeling and compute
▪️ NIH: datasets built with $500M+ in prior federal funding
▪️ Meta, Google DeepMind, Isomorphic Labs: $300M combined

The goal is standardized, high quality data to train models that predict how cells behave.

The partners are targeting a first dataset in about a year and predictive models within five.

Commercial funders get a one year head start before the data opens more broadly.

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3 days ago

Minerva Humanoids raises $10M to build Roger, a humanoid for dangerous jobs.

Around 330,000 workers die from occupational accidents worldwide each year, per ILO data. Roger is designed so trained specialists, such as bomb disposal and hazmat responders, can work remotely through a VR headset while onboard AI handles balance, fall recovery and navigation.

The company says it went from concept to a walking prototype in five months, with first paid pilots planned for this fall. Software and AI are developed in the US, and the first prototypes are built in Germany.

Founders Sandor Felber and Maurice Rahme have backgrounds at Tesla Optimus and Boston Dynamics.

Worth noting: the claims are company-reported, and Roger has yet to be proven in commercial deployments.

Congrats to CEO Sandor Felber, CTO Maurice Rahme and the Minerva team, and to General Catalyst, Long Journey Ventures and Credo Ventures for leading the round.

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3 days ago

Hark launches Hark Pro, a proactive AI assistant it calls an "operating system for your life."

Founded less than a year ago by Brett Adcock (also behind Figure AI and Archer Aviation), Hark released Hark Pro to the public on Oct 6.

The assistant uses a computer on your behalf to handle everyday errands like bookings, bill payments and email, and it keeps persistent memory of the user.

It's free to use on web, iOS and Android, with a paid tier for heavy users.

Hark says user data is end-to-end encrypted and that the assistant checks in before actions that need approval. An AI-native hardware device is planned for 2027.

Hark enters a crowded personal-assistant race alongside Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots. According to reports, the company has raised $700M at a $6B valuation.

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4 days ago

Unitree Robotics unveils the Dex5-S, a 22-DoF dexterous robot hand priced from $6,500.

The hand matches the size of a human hand and has backdrivable joints with impact torque protection. It weighs about 620g, carries up to 2kg at maximum load, and connects via Ethernet, USB, or RS-485, with palm camera support.

The starting price excludes tax and shipping.

It builds on Unitree's Dex5 line, which includes a 20-DoF model and a variant with 94 tactile sensors. A full spec sheet and independent performance testing are still pending, so real world capability remains to be seen.

Dexterous hands are becoming a key focus for humanoid developers, with AGIBOT's AGILINK and Shadow Robot also active in the space.

Credit to Leo Kharon for this video.

What do you think this means for the cost of humanoid development?

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4 days ago

OpenAI will add invisible watermarks to ChatGPT and Codex text in the EU 🇪🇺

To comply with the EU AI Act, OpenAI is rolling out "textGrain", a hidden signal in word choices that lets machines detect AI-generated text.

What's confirmed:
→ EU rollout to ChatGPT and Codex users on all plans, over the coming weeks
→ Opt-in for API developers worldwide, starting Oct 5
→ Detector access limited to approved researchers for now
→ OpenAI notes editing weakens detection: swapping 10% of words for synonyms cut it from ~92% to ~66%

OpenAI also states a watermark doesn't prove human authorship or identify the user. Anthropic announced similar watermarking for Claude in August.

How do you think AI generated text should be labeled?

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5 days ago

RobCo surpasses a $1B valuation, doubling its value in nine months

The Munich based robotics company reached the milestone through a share sale that combines new investment with an employee secondary.

The The Wall Street Journal reports the sale at around $40M, mostly shares held by employees.

New investors Cherry Ventures and European Tech Collective joined existing backers Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners-us, Lingotto Innovation, Greenfield Partners, Kindred Capital VC and Promus Ventures.

The deal follows RobCo's $100M Series C in January 2026, and CEO Roman Hölzl is now relocating to the US, its fastest growing market.

RobCo delivers AI-powered industrial robots through a robotics as a service model, and the deal reflects growing investor interest in physical AI.

Congratulations to the RobCo team!

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5 days ago

UBTECH Robotics shows inside its "Super Smart Factory" where robots help build robots.

CEO James Zhou opens the doors in Episode 1 of a new factory tour series. The plant in Liuzhou, China was commissioned on September 12.

Here's what's been reported:

- 14,000 m² facility built with Siemens Digital Industries Software for digital planning, simulation and quality control

- Designed to finish one industrial humanoid every 10 minutes, with a planned capacity of 10,000+ units a year

- Produces the Walker S and Cruzr series, which are already being tested at automakers like Dongfeng Liuzhou Motor

- Includes an automated warehouse that stores 112 humanoid robots in 65 m²

One caveat: the 10,000 figure is design capacity, not verified output yet. Worth watching how the ramp goes from here.

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6 days ago

Maven Robotics adds Shorooq and Presight to its $100M Series A.

The Santa Clara-based industrial robotics startup, co-founded in 2024 by Hamza Derbas and Khalid Derbas, builds general purpose robots for logistics and manufacturing, starting with mixed case palletizing and tote handling.

RoboStrategy led the round, with LocalGlobe, Vine Ventures and XTX Ventures participating. Shorooq and Presight (a G42 company) joined through the Presight Shorooq AI and Bedaya funds, and individual amounts were not disclosed.

The funding will go toward building 250 third-generation robots and designing a fourth-generation platform.

Maven also reports its robots run up to 16 hours a day at 99%+ uptime at a Fortune 250 consumer goods customer, a figure that comes from the company.

The round was first announced on Sept 10, and the Gulf investors' participation was disclosed on Sept 28.

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6 days ago