Business Insider just published “Meet the 22 investors to know in robotics and physical AI” and while I don’t disagree with their choices, if you’ve ever fundraised for a robotics company then you know that the people you need to talk to are rarely on lists like this which includes:
Aidan Madigan-Curtis, Eclipse Ventures
Ajay Agarwal, Bain Capital Ventures
Bilal Zuberi, Red Glass Ventures
Brian Zhan, Striker Venture Partners
Jeremy Levine and Talia Goldberg, Bessemer Venture Partners
Joanne Lichter, Emerson Collective
Kahini Shah, Obvious Ventures
Katherine Boyle, Andreessen Horowitz
Kelly Chen
Kevin Spain and Jake Saper, Emergence Capital
Matt Ocko, DCVC
Neil Mehta, Greenoaks Capital
Raviraj Jain, Lightspeed Venture Partners
Sarah Guo, Conviction
Seth Winterroth, Eclipse
Shahin Farshchi, Lux Capital
Shaun Maguire, Sequoia Capital
Sven Strohband and Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures
Trae Stephens, Founders Fund
Some of these investors attended Silicon Valley Robotics first Investor Summits back in 2012, 2013 and I’d like to also give a shout out to Aymerik Renard, Hardware Club, Steve Goldberg, DYDX Capital. Others have discovered robotics comparatively lately.
Yet, the majority of robotics investments tap from a pool of more than thousand unique robotics investors or VC firms. If you raise, you have about a 2% chance of having one of the well known robotics investors on your cap table.
Robotics and Physical AI has raised more than $23 Billion globally in 2026, looking likely to overtake a high water mark of approx $35 Billion in 2025. The 1100 companies that raised rounds in 2025 have a total of 5700 investors on their cap tables. While the top investors may feature in a wide range of rounds, there are still a lot of unsung ‘heroes’ in the robotics investment space.
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These investors write checks anywhere from angel and seed stage to $5-50 million.
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Symbiokinetics builds robotic systems that learn skilled physical interaction from human experts. Our robots operate in direct contact with people in high-stakes environments. They need to feel intuitive, predictable, and be completely safe.
Symbiokinetics is looking for several full time positions in Sunnyvale, CA:
Senior Electronics Design Engineer (apply via Linked In)
More positions (not yet on Linked In)
Research Engineer, Robot Learning
Embedded Systems Engineer
Senior Robotics Controls Engineer — pHRI
Hardware NPI & Manufacturing Engineer
FLX Solutions creates the smallest, most customizable, most affordable snake-like robot in the world. FLX has a lot of large scale customer projects on the roadmap and are looking for a Senior Operations Manager to handle the demand. FLX is also looking for a Software Lead: Firmware and Robotics, and a Senior Mechanical Product Engineer. FLX is based in Bethlehem Pennsylvania, looking for local talent but open to remote workers.
More information on the FLX Career Page
What Amazon’s Astro Taught Me About Giving Robots a Soul - IEEE Spectrum
Autonomous Trucks Can Be Life-Saving - Bloomberg
Chinese Autonomous-Driving Unicorn Targets $1 Billion Hong Kong IPO - WSJ
No, It’s Not Nearly Impossible To Make A China-Free Humanoid Robot - Forbes
The Robot Butler Boom Has Begun and China Is Way Ahead - Inc
Collecting robot training data is dirty, unglamorous work. Some AI labs are already paying XDOF to do it. - TechCrunch
The State of Industrial Robotics - Foundation for American Innovation
LG’s Long Bet on Artificial Intelligence Begins to pay Off in the Physical World - Insight Korea
China pushes humanoid robots from demonstrations to real-world jobs - CGTN
Operating a Humanoid With Your Body Is a Hot Job in China’s hardware Capital - Wired
Hyundai to buy SoftBank’s remaining stake in Boston Dynamics for $325 mln, newspaper says - Reuters
“Who fixes the robots?”… The gaps in the robot industry identified by Ifelse CEO Cho Hyun-min - VentureSquare
He made your free video player run smoothly. Now he’s doing that for robots. - TechCrunch
Built Robotics, Penn xLAB to develop physical AI for construction - The Robot Report
Waymo hits the brakes after robotaxis keep missing the signs for freeway construction zones - The Register
Rivian’s CEO Is Taking On Elon Musk In Humanoid Robots - Benzinga
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe Warns That the U.S. Isn’t Prepared for AI’s Impact on This 1 Type of Job - Inc
7 Robotics Startups to Watch Right Now - Inc (paywalled)
Humanoid Robots: 18 Companies Racing To Build The Next Big Think In AI - Forbes (paywalled)
New wheeled robot says no thanks to humanoid hype - FoxNews
‘We had to get out of the way’: The backlash over delivery robots - BBC
Robots pour cocktails and run marathons, but still can’t multitask - The Japan Times
PepsiCo Enhances Supply Chain With Autonomous Fleet - SupplyChainDigital
Rockwell Automation Introduces Execution Architecture to Support Autonomous, Scalable Manufacturing Operations - Supply and Demand Chain
Scientists in ‘autonomous laboratories’ are starting to outsource work to robots - NPR KQED
The lab never sleeps. Can the science keep up? - Scientific American
Do robots even need legs? Video Friday - IEEE Spectrum
Many companies are reaching out to Silicon Valley Robotics about hosting events, outreach or hiring and we have a great community network, of people looking for work, of investors interested in deal flow and of technologists interested in learning about the latest advances.
Would you be interested in hosting the next Bots, Bevs and Devs? Or something customized specifically for your goals? Reach out here!
Automate - Chicago - June 22 - June 25
Deep Tech Week - San Francisco - June 22 - June 26
Robot Fringe Festival - London - July 2
Bots, Bevs & Devs - Santa Clara - July 8
Robotics: Science and Systems - Sydney, Australia - July 13 - July 16
Open Sauce - San Francisco - July 17 - July 19
Bots, Bevs & Devs - San Francisco - Aug 35Actuate - San Francisco - Aug 18 - Aug 19
Bots, Bevs & Devs - tbd - Sep 2
SVR Investor Summit and Manufacturing Workshop - tbd - tbd
ROSCon Global - Toronto - Sep 22 - Sep 24
IROS 2026 - Pittsburgh - Sep 27 - Oct 1
Bots, Bevs & Devs - tbd - Oct 7
Bots, Bevs & Devs - tbd - Nov4
Bots, Bevs & Devs - tbd - Dec 2
IEEE Humanoids 2026 - Silicon Valley - Dec 6-9
The annual IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots is the internationally recognized prime event of the humanoid robotics community. The conference is sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and coordinated by the Technical Committee on Humanoids.
Send me your 2026 progress, plans or posts for potential inclusion in Robots&Startups. Or join the organizing team at Silicon Valley Robotics - bots&beer@svrobo.org
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