Tokyo-based startup MW is embedding ceiling-mounted robotic arms into homes as an alternative to humanoids, targeting its first robot-equipped home sale by 2028, 10,000 units annually by 2035, and a ¥10 billion Series A within two years, after raising ¥3 billion in seed funding from major Japanese bank VCs.
First Hydrogen Corp. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 60% stake in RoboticsCo, which holds 26 issued patents covering advanced actuation, gearbox, and motor technologies, and has simultaneously launched First Humanoid Corp. as a wholly owned subsidiary to develop and commercialize humanoid robot IP.
Vecna Robotics has raised $31 million led by Unless to scale its U.S.-manufactured autonomous mobile robot fleet, as demand for its CaseFlow case-picking system more than doubled year-over-year and FCC action on foreign-made connected robots increases commercial interest in domestically produced automation platforms.
Around 30 robots including Agibot A3 humanoids and quadrupeds marched outside Poland’s digital affairs ministry in Warsaw, chanting slogans demanding AI labor market regulation in an event organized by Democratism and met by Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski.
French dental robotics startup Lupin Dental has closed a €15 million Series A led by Fynveur, with Bpifrance participation, to expand its robotic system that automates tooth preparation for veneers under dentist supervision, currently approved for clinical use in the UK and India but not yet cleared in the U.S. or EU.
Unitree Robotics has demonstrated UnifoLM-X2-1.0, a world model that enables its humanoid robot to autonomously decide how to move, evade, and attack in real-time combat without a human operator or pre-scripted movements, describing it as the first fully autonomous humanoid combat driven by a world model.
Figure AI and Nscale have signed a strategic partnership providing Figure with access to up to 100,000 NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs starting in the second half of 2027, in an initial $3.5 billion compute commitment with intent to scale beyond $6 billion, as Figure’s Helix model generates 35 minutes of training data every second through its Index dataset initiative.
IFA 2026 in Berlin featured the highest number of humanoid robots in the trade show’s history, with PrimeBOT Q1, Booster K1, EngineAI T800, Agibot A3, and Zeroth W1 among the platforms demonstrating martial arts, soccer, calligraphy, and home navigation for B2B and emerging B2C markets.
A Reuters review of more than 100 Chinese military procurement notices, academic studies, and defense industry materials documents China’s People’s Liberation Army moving from humanoid robot demonstrations to active procurement, battlefield scenario research, and training data collection systems, with Norinco’s Fuxi humanoid designed for sentry duty and reconnaissance.
Cornell University has received a four-year, $7.5 million USDA grant to establish a Center of Excellence for Orchard Robotics, developing robots for pollination, fruit thinning, apple harvesting, and weeding in collaboration with nine partner organizations including Washington State University, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and Fresh Fruit Robotics.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has confirmed the company is developing a humanoid robot alongside other form factors, with 19 open robotics roles including four actuator-specific positions, indicating OpenAI is building proprietary hardware rather than licensing a chassis as competitors assumed.
Lyte, founded by Apple Face ID and Microsoft Kinect engineers, has raised $165 million in a Series C led by Maverick Silicon at a $1.6 billion post-money valuation, tripling its January 2026 valuation as it scales its LyteVision perception platform from prototypes to production deployments in inspection, logistics, and manufacturing.
Samsung SDS hosted its RX ART 2026 event in Mountain View, California, sharing results from technology validation projects at Samsung Electro-Mechanics, SEMES, Samsung Heavy Industries, Samsung E&A, and Samsung Display, using Walden Robotics and RoboForce platforms to validate physical AI on live factory floors.
Paris-based Wandercraft is in talks to raise approximately €100 million at a €750 million pre-money valuation, advised by Goldman Sachs, as customer and investor Renault plans to scale from 10 Calvin-40 humanoid robots by end of 2026 to 350 across its French and Spanish factories by end of 2027.
Zeroth has launched Bridge, an 88-centimeter AI-native humanoid robot with open SDKs and motion-control APIs, alongside OpenBridge, a fully open-source ecosystem with a shared Skill Hub, targeting developers who want to build and share robot capabilities across a community platform.
