Grishin Robotics Newsletter #12
This Week's Good Reads
Bloomberg — Humanoid Bots Kick Off in Beijing
Bloomberg reports on the “World Humanoid Robot Games”, where pint-sized androids waddled through a 5-3 soccer match—offering both a reality-check on bipedal locomotion and a peek at rapid progress in multi-agent AI coordination. Catch the story.
Anthropic — Project Vend: Claude Tries to Run a Shop
Anthropic let its Claude Sonnet model manage an office vending “micro-store” for a month. The AI nailed supplier sourcing but hallucinated Venmo accounts, underselling tungsten cubes and learning hard lessons about pricing, memory and human mischief. See the field notes.
The Telegraph / Guardian — Wimbledon Swaps Line Judges for Hawk-Eye AI
After 147 years, SW19 has gone fully automated: 18 cameras make every call, voiced by recorded umpires. Players love the accuracy but complain the calls are “too quiet”; purists mourn the loss of Ralph Lauren-clad officials. Explore the debate.
Bloomberg — Why Reliable Self-Driving Cars Are Still a Moonshot
A fresh explainer breaks down the long tail of edge-cases, sensor trade-offs and crushing capital burn that keep Level-4 robo-taxis stuck in pilot mode—despite a decade of hype. Dig in here.
MIT Sloan Management Review — Robots Will Shrink Middle Management
New research on 24,000 U.S. plants finds that robot adoption cuts supervisory roles but actually boosts overall headcount—shifting demand to tech-savvy frontline staff and data analysts while exposing managers who add little beyond scheduling. Read the 5-minute brief.
Robotics Companies Funding
Thinking Machines Lab – $2 B, Seed round (20 Jun 2025), led by Andreessen Horowitz with Conviction Partners (Crunchbase). San-Francisco AI powerhouse founded by ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, building next-gen, customizable foundation models to make advanced AI “understandable and user-tunable” across industries.
ForSight Robotics – $125 M, Series B round (24 Jun 2025), led by Eclipse, joined by strategic backers including the Adani Group, Dr. Fred Moll and Reiya Ventures (Crunchbase). Israeli med-robotics outfit behind ORYOM™, the first robotic cataract-surgery platform, bringing sub-micron precision and surgeon-grade dexterity to eye procedures.
SWARM Biotactics – €13 M, Seed round (23 Jun 2025), led by Vertex Ventures US with Possible Ventures and Capnamic (Crunchbase). Kassel-based pioneer turning live cockroaches into edge-AI “bio-robots,” creating silent, resilient swarms that deliver real-time intel in disaster zones and denied terrain.
AuraML – $1 M, Pre-Seed round (25 Jun 2025), led by Turbostart with DeVC, GSF Accelerator and Indian Angel Network (Crunchbase). Bengaluru deep-tech startup whose AuraSIM platform spins up photorealistic “text-to-world” simulations so AMRs and forklifts can be trained and validated virtually, slashing sim-to-real time from months to days.
Unchained Robotics – €8.5 M, Series A (extended) round (25 Jun 2025), led by Direttissima Growth Partners with Navivo Capital, Future Industry Ventures, vent.io and D11Z (Crunchbase). Paderborn SaaS marketplace whose LUNA OS and “MalocherBot” turn multi-vendor robot fleets into plug-and-play modules for Europe’s SME manufacturers.
Tacta Systems – $75 M, Series A package (26 Jun 2025), co-led by America’s Frontier Fund and SBVA; seed portion earlier led by Matter Venture Partners (Crunchbase). Palo Alto team building a “dextrous-intelligence nervous system” so robots can feel, adapt and manipulate objects with human-level touch for both factory and consumer tasks.
Genesis Robotics – $85 M, Seed/Series A hybrid (26 Jun 2025), co-led by Khosla Ventures and Eclipse Capital (Crunchbase). Paris-born stealth venture creating ultra-fast 3D-world simulators to generate synthetic data at 430k× real-time speed, turbo-charging training pipelines for AI-driven robots.
Robotics News
Gemini Robotics On-Device brings AI to local robotic devices — Google DeepMind debuts an on-device version of its VLA model that gives robots cloud-free dexterity and rapid task adaptation. Google DeepMind
Japan’s Yaskawa Electric bets $180 million on U.S. robotics expansion — The industrial-automation giant will build a Wisconsin plant for robots and servo motors to serve North-American customers. CNBC
GFT and NEURA Robotics form strategic partnership on “physical AI” software — German IT firm GFT will co-develop the software platform powering NEURA’s cognitive robots and humanoids. TradingView News
Chinese robot startup reaps rewards after high-profile race — Beijing-based Noetix Robotics saw orders and fundraising prospects surge after its humanoid placed second in the world’s first robot half-marathon. Bloomberg
Using generative AI to help robots jump higher and land safely — MIT CSAIL researchers used diffusion models to redesign robot structures, boosting jump height by 41% and landing stability by 84%. MIT News
NDA launches pioneering robotics partnership to manage nuclear waste — The UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is investing £9.5 million in Auto-SAS, an autonomous system that sorts radioactive waste. GOV.UK
Tesla sends driverless Model Y from factory to customer to tout robotaxi tech — A 15-mile autonomous delivery in Austin showcased Tesla’s latest self-driving software days after its limited robotaxi launch. TechCrunch
Intel is closing its automotive chipmaking business — The chipmaker will wind down its car-processor unit and lay off most staff as it refocuses on core data-center and PC products. The Verge
Uber in talks to back Travis Kalanick’s bid for Pony.ai’s U.S. arm — The ride-hailing giant may help its founder acquire the autonomous-vehicle unit, re-entering the self-driving race it exited in 2020. Bloomberg
Cyngn showcases next-gen robotics and AI with NVIDIA at Automatica 2025 — The AV-technology firm demonstrated its DriveMod kit and simulation tools for industrial robots at Munich’s flagship automation show. PR Newswire
MUHC inaugurates SuPER centre for surgical AI and robotics — Montreal’s McGill University Health Centre is investing CA$35 million to develop soft surgical robots and AI-guided training tools. Canadian Healthcare Technology
Kodiak Robotics teams up with remote-driving specialist Vay — The partners will combine autonomous trucking with tele-operations to speed commercial deployment on U.S. highways. Transport Topics
OpenExo: an open-source modular exoskeleton to augment human performance — Researchers introduce a freely available wearable-robot platform aimed at accelerating exoskeleton research and adoption. Science Robotics
Serve Robotics expands autonomous delivery to Atlanta with Uber Eats — Sidewalk delivery bots now cover 50,000 residents, with plans to deploy 2,000 units nationwide by end-2025. Investing.com
Berkeley engineers develop customizable, 3D-printed ‘Humanoid Lite’ robot for beginners — The open-source kit costs under $5,000 and can be built in a week using standard desktop printers. Berkeley Engineering
Apptronik spins out Elevate Robotics for super-human industrial automation — New subsidiary will commercialize heavy-duty robotics tech derived from Apptronik’s Apollo humanoid platform. Apptronik
The next big thing in airports: robotic luggage helpers — Airports are trialling autonomous trolleys and AGVs to cut lost-baggage rates, speed turnaround, and ease labor shortages. Airways Magazine