Category: robotics

Figure founder and CEO Brett Adcock Thursday revealed a new machine learning model for humanoid robots. The news, which arrives two weeks after Adcock announced the Bay Area robotics firm’s decision to step away from an OpenAI collaboration, is centered around Helix, a “generalist” Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model. VLAs are a new phenomenon for robotics, leveraging…

Figure AI is in talks to raise $1.5B at 15x its last valuation

February 14, 2025

Meta’s next big bet may be humanoid robotics

February 14, 2025

Meta is forming a new team within its Reality Labs hardware division to build robots that can assist with physical tasks, Bloomberg reported. The team will be responsible for developing humanoid robotics hardware, potentially including hardware that can perform household chores. Meta’s new robotics group, which will be led by Marc Whitten, driverless car startup…

ICON, a pioneer in 3D home printing, raises $56M led by Norwest, Tiger Global

February 14, 2025

ICON, which builds homes using 3D printing, has closed on $56 million in Series C funding co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Tiger Global, the company has confirmed to TechCrunch exclusively. The raise represents a first close for the Austin-based ICON, according to a spokesperson. Existing backers CAZ Investments, LENX, Moderne Ventures, Oakhouse Partners and…

Avride launches sidewalk delivery bots on Uber Eats in Jersey City

February 13, 2025

Uber Eats customers in Jersey City can now have their orders delivered by one of Avride’s autonomous sidewalk delivery robots. The launch, which kicked off this week in New Jersey, is Uber’s latest foray into autonomous vehicles and represents an expanding relationship with Avride. The ride-hail and delivery giant deploys AVs on its app in…

Apptronik, which makes humanoid robots, raises $350M as category heats up

February 13, 2025

Apptronik, a University of Texas spin-out that was quietly building humanoid robots before it became quite so fashionable, on Thursday announced a $350 million Series A round of financing. B Capital and Capital Factory co-led the round, which also featured participation from Google, whose DeepMind division is partnering with Apptronik to deliver embodied AI for…

Apple is reportedly exploring humanoid robots

February 12, 2025

Apple is exploring both humanoid and non-humanoid robotics form factors, according to a new scoop from longtime Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The intel comes on the heels of a research paper from the iPhone-maker that explores human interactions with “non-anthropomorphic” robots – specifically a Pixar-style lamp. While Apple’s research paper highlights elements that could inform…

Apple’s new research robot takes a page from Pixar’s playbook

February 8, 2025

Last month, Apple offered up more insight into its consumer robotics work via a research paper that argues that traits like expressive movements are key to optimizing human-robot interaction. “Like most animals,” starts the report, “humans are highly sensitive to motion and subtle changes in movement.” To illustrate its point, Apple pays homage to Pixar,…

Meta is studying how humans and robots can collaborate on housework

February 7, 2025

Meta Friday announced PARTNR, a new program designed to study human-robot interaction (HRI). The research is specifically focused on how humans and robots might collaborate in the home environment. That includes mundane tasks like cleaning, cooking, and picking up food deliveries. Automated housework is a decades-old dream, most prominently captured by The Jetsons’ Rosie. The…

Boston Dynamics joins forces with its former CEO to speed the learning of its Atlas humanoid robot

February 5, 2025

Boston Dynamics Wednesday announced a partnership designed to bring improved reinforcement learning to its electric Atlas humanoid robot. The tie-up is with the Robotics & AI Institute (RAI Institute), earlier known as The Boston Dynamics AI Institute. Both organizations were founded by Marc Raibert, a former MIT professor who served as Boston Dynamics’ CEO for…

AI’s biggest stage awaits – TechCrunch Sessions: AI tickets available

February 5, 2025

AI is heating up, and we’re diving in! TechCrunch Sessions: AI is officially open for registration. Secure your spot now and save up to $300 on select tickets before prices rise From startup founders to AI investors to aspiring innovators — TC Sessions: AI is where the entire AI ecosystem comes together. Whether you’re building,…

Brightpick’s new warehouse robot can reach 20-foot-high shelves

February 4, 2025

Brightpick, a maker of autonomous mobile robots, on Tuesday announced a lofty addition to its current line. The appropriately named Giraffe system is notable for its large, retractable platform capable of reaching up to 20 feet (6 meters) in height to pick items from warehouse shelves. It’s a novel approach to warehouses with ceilings well…

Figure drops OpenAI in favor of in-house models

February 4, 2025

Figure AI founder and CEO Brett Adcock announced Tuesday that the humanoid robotics firm is exiting a deal with OpenAI. The Bay Area-based robotics company has instead opted to focus on in-house AI, owing to a “major breakthrough.” Adcock was tightlipped in terms of specifics, but he promised to deliver “something no one has ever…

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025: Secure your ticket at this year’s lowest rates

February 3, 2025

Missed the 2-for-1 deal for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025? No problem! Super Early Bird prices are still available, with savings of up to $1,130 on individual tickets and up to 30% on group passes. These savings are only good until the end of this month. Celebrate 20 years of TechCrunch Disrupt from October 27-29 at Moscone…

SoftBank to invest $500M in robotics startup SkildAI

January 28, 2025

SoftBank is negotiating a $500 million investment in Skild AI, a software company building a foundational model for robotics at a $4 billion valuation, Bloomberg and Financial Times reported. The two-year-old company raised its previous funding round of $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation last July from investors including Jeff Bezos, Lightspeed Venture Partners,…

Figure AI details plan to improve humanoid robot safety in the workplace

January 28, 2025

Safety is often overlooked in the rush to bring humanoid robots to the workplace. As high-profile corporations ranging from retailers like Amazon to carmakers such as Mercedes and BMW have announced humanoid pilots for factories and warehouses, conversations around worker safety are regularly buried beneath industry hype. One Bay Area-robotics firm is hoping to correct…

Ambi Robotics built a clever solution to automate pallet packing

January 28, 2025

U.C. Berkeley spinout Ambi Robotics announced Tuesday the arrival of AmbiStack, a novel system that automates pallet packing. The system features an industrial robotic arm mounted above a conveyer belt that moves along the X and Y axes and lifts boxes up via suction cups mounted to a gripper. Once lifted from the conveyer belt,…

Amazon’s Prime Air drone service is headed to this UK town

January 28, 2025

Amazon announced Monday it has picked the north England town of Darlington as the first site for its planned U.K. drone delivery expansion. Amazon was expected to expand Prime Air to the U.K. and Italy in 2024. After missing that initial target, the company opted to not share a timeline for this latest launch. Instead,…

Cornell’s robot jellyfish and worm are powered by a hydraulic fluid battery

January 27, 2025

Researchers at Cornell University on Monday showcased a pair of bio-inspired robotics running on a hydraulic fluid-powered battery. The redox flow battery (RFB) also mimics biological functions, as it releases electrolytic fluids, which dissolve to create energy through chemical reaction. The first two robots on display are a modular worm and a jellyfish, designed by…

OpenAI-backed 1X acquires Kind Humanoid

January 27, 2025

1X has acquired Kind Humanoid, the Norwegian robotics startup told TechCrunch on Monday. The deal marks a small but key consolidation for a humanoid robotics industry on the brink of a major moment in 2025. TechCrunch spoke with Kind Humanoid in October, when the then-three-person startup announced that it had enlisted famed designer Yves Behar…

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025: 5 Days left to claim your 2 for 1 Passes at the lowest rate of the year

January 27, 2025

The clock is ticking for one of our Super Early Bird sales! You have just 5 days left to lock in your 2 for 1 Passes at the lowest rates of the year for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. Save up to $1,400 on two of the same individual ticket type. This limited-time offer ends this Friday,…

LG Electronics takes majority stake in Bear Robotics, reportedly valuing startup at $600M

January 24, 2025

LG Electronics is betting on robotics as its next big growth driver. The South Korean electronics company said on Friday that it has agreed to acquire an additional 30% stake in Bear Robotics, a California-based startup it previously backed that is building AI-powered server robots for restaurants. The deal gives LG a majority ownership of…

Meta’s Yann LeCun predicts a ‘new AI architectures paradigm’ within 5 years and ‘decade of robotics’

January 23, 2025

Meta’s chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, says that a “new paradigm of AI architectures” will emerge in the next three to five years, going far beyond the capabilities of existing AI systems. LeCun also predicted that the coming years could be the “decade of robotics,” where advances in AI and robotics combine to unlock a…

Ati Motors raises $20M as India’s robotics industry grows

January 22, 2025

DJI Flip is a $439, fully foldable camera drone

January 14, 2025

Four short months after introducing the truly palm-size Neo, DJI is back with another pint-sized consumer drone. The Flip continues the drone giant’s interest in foldable form factors, with a quartet of propeller guards that essentially stack up, for maximum portability. The new Flip continues to blur the lines in DJI’s existing consumer portfolio, combing…

New OpenAI job listings reveal its robotics plans

January 10, 2025

OpenAI disbanded its robotics department. Then, it brought it back. Now, through a social media post from its hardware director and newly published job descriptions, OpenAI is revealing more about its plans for the revived team. In a post on X on Friday, Caitlin Kalinowski, who joined OpenAI to lead hardware last November from Meta’s…

Apptronik’s Apollo humanoid robot gets to work at CES 2025

January 9, 2025

CES 2025 has been a mixed bag for humanoid robots. The form factor had a watershed moment, as images of the top players flanked NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang during his Monday keynote. Of these, Agility’s Digit also showed up alongside a miniature conveyer belt at a closed access NVIDIA booth. It was a nice return…

Xocean raises $119M to capture ocean data with uncrewed surface vessels

January 9, 2025

Xocean, an Irish marine robotics startup that provides ocean data to the energy and hydrography industries using uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), has raised €115 million ($119 million) as it looks to expand coverage to additional sectors. Founded in 2017, Xocean has built a fleet of remotely-controlled USVs that can remain offshore for long periods of…

This basketball robot uses AI to rebound the ball after you shoot

January 8, 2025

Like anything in life, the secret to becoming Steph Curry or Sabrina Ionescu is practice, practice, and more practice. You practice when it’s too hot, too cold, you’re tired, or you’re sick. Finding a willing one-on-one partner through all of that is, however, another question entirely. The good news is that later this year, you…

Boston Dynamics settles patent suit with military robotics firm Ghost

January 8, 2025

Roughly two and a half years after their patent battle began, Boston Dynamics and Ghost Robotics have settled the dispute on reasonably amicable terms. The robotics firms on Wednesday issued a joint release announcing the end of the dispute. “We are pleased to resolve this dispute on mutually advantageous terms,” Boston Dynamics Chief Legal Officer…

This pool cleaning company made a robot turtle to track water quality

January 7, 2025

Beatbot makes robotic pool cleaners. In fact, the company is showing off a new one with a docking station this week at CES 2025. What really caught our eye on the show floor, however, is RoboTurtle, because, well, it’s a robot that looks like a turtle. The turtle, sadly, seems to very much be in…

Serve Robotics raises additional $80M as it scales sidewalk delivery robots

January 7, 2025

Nvidia and Uber-backed Serve Robotics has raised $80 million in a direct offering of 4.2 million shares of common stock, money that will help the company extend its runway through 2026 and scale its fleet from the 100 robots on the streets of Los Angeles today to the 2,000 Serve hopes to deploy by the…

German Bionic’s new exoskeleton supports 80-pound lifts

January 7, 2025

At CES 2025, German Bionic announced the Apogee Ultra, a new robotic exoskeleton it claims is the “world’s most powerful.” What did the system do to earn such a lofty title? It offers up to 80 pounds of dynamic lift assistance. That mean a payload of 70 pounds feels more like 9 to 11 pounds…

Nvidia is helping humanoid robots learn through Apple Vision Pro instruction

January 6, 2025

Robotics have been a foundational element of Nvidia’s stratospheric growth in recent years. When the chip maker announced GR00T in March of last year, it was heralded as a watershed moment from humanoid robotics. Most of the category’s biggest names were available from launch, including, 1X Technologies, Agility Robotics, Apptronik, Boston Dynamics, Figure AI, Fourier…

Nvidia details Mega, a fleet manager for warehouse robots

January 6, 2025

Nvidia continues its expansion into robotics software with Mega an Omniverse Blueprint designed specifically for robotic fleet management at scale. The offering, announced at CES Monday, specifically targets warehouses, a space that saw massive robotics adoption during the pandemic. Even so, most still lack significant automation. Companies like Locus Robotics have made significant headway in…

Nvidia’s CES 2025 keynote: How to watch

January 6, 2025

Nvidia will no doubt have the biggest CES 2025. After all, the company has pretty much the biggest everything nowadays. The chip giant is sporting a $3.4+ trillion market cap, due largely to its foundational position in the ongoing AI boom. Companies like OpenAI and Meta have purchased Nvidia processors by the boatload, and that’s…

Toyota’s Woven City is open for business and looking for startups

January 6, 2025

Toyota Motor Chairman Akio Toyoda revealed Monday at CES 2025 his vision for a living laboratory chock full of startups and technology. His message: Woven City — a prototype city on a 175-acre site at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan — is open for business and searching for inventors. “Today, I say to…

Toyota is teaching robot arms to fold t-shirts the Japanese way

January 6, 2025

Monday’s Toyota CES press conference was all about Woven City, the carmaker’s planned community at the base of Mt. Fuji. Robotics will undoubtedly play a major role in the company’s bid to automate as much of the 2,000-person city as possible, including autonomous cars and drones designed to chaperone people back home after dark. One…

Samsung says its home robot, Ballie, will roll out this year

January 6, 2025

Tech companies love rolling a robot out onstage. These systems serve as shorthand for consumer electronics brands branching out into more bleeding-edge category. On occasion we get an Amazon Astro or Sony Aibo that actually hit in the market in some form. More often than not, however, the robots only exist in the land of…

John Deere’s new robot lawnmower is coming for landscapers’ jobs

January 6, 2025

John Deere has a bunch of new products that it just showed off at CES 2025, including an electric robot lawnmower meant for commercial-grade landscaping. Powered by a 21.4kWh battery — roughly a quarter the size of what you’d find on a passenger EV — the company says the mower is supposed to be able…

RoboForce raises $10 millions to create a robot workforce

January 6, 2025

This tiny robot cat will blow on your coffee to cool it off

January 5, 2025

Yukai Engineering’s parade of weird animal robots at CES 2025 continues with Nékojita FuFu. The little cat mounts to the side of a mug or bowl, blowing air to help cool it off. The Tokyo-based firm says the robot combines a fan and “special algorithm” — or a “Fuing System — to blow at random…

This fuzzy, purse-mounted robot is designed to ‘delight bystanders’

January 5, 2025

Best known for its Qooba cat pillow, Yukai Engineering has made a name for itself with some of the strangest little robots around. Who could forget, for example, Amagami Ham Ham, whose sole purpose is to gnaw on fingers, offering a “somewhat pleasing sensation.” At CES 2025, Yukai unveiled its latest, Mirumi, and it follows…

Toyota’s CES 2025 press conference: How to watch

January 5, 2025

Five years ago, Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda went to CES to share with the world his “personal field of dreams” — a plan to build a prototype city on a 175-acre site at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan, where people would live and work amongst all of Toyota’s projects, including autonomous vehicle technology,…

Roborock’s Roomba competitor gets a robot arm

January 5, 2025

iRobot’s on-going financial crisis aside, the world of robot vacuums is still humming along. At CES Sunday, Roborock announced the Saros Z70. The Roomba competitor showcases what the company believes will be the next big step in robovac evolution: an arm. The idea of mounting a a manipulator is no doubt as old as robot…

Nvidia’s CES 2025 keynote: How to watch

January 2, 2025

These 55 robotics companies are hiring

January 2, 2025

These 55 robotics companies are hiring

January 2, 2025

CES 2025: What to expect from the year’s first and biggest tech show

January 2, 2025

CES 2025 officially kicks off in Las Vegas on Tuesday morning, running through the end of the day on January 10. The “official” dates are specific to when the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center is open to attendees, and ultimately belie the show’s true duration. A pair of press days kick off Sunday…

Toyota’s CES 2025 press conference: How to watch

January 1, 2025

Samsung pays $181M to become largest shareholder of Rainbow Robotics

December 31, 2024

Samsung Electronics said on Tuesday that it has become the largest shareholder of South Korea-based robotics maker Rainbow Robotics, increasing its stake from 14.7% to 35% for KRW 267 billion (about $181 billion). The electronics giant, which paid KRW 86.8 billion for the 14.7% stake in 2023, said it is acquiring the stake to bolster…

Watch this four-legged robot adapt to tricky situations like an animal

December 27, 2024

Researchers at the University of Leeds recently demonstrated a framework for a quadruped robot with a design inspired by the bio-mechanics of four-legged animals. The versatile robot is able to navigate complex environments, maintain stability on uneven ground, and recover after a fall — all without the use of extra-perceptive sensors. © 2024 TechCrunch. All…

Watch this robotic ‘Superman Suit’ rotate around a gymnastics bar

December 26, 2024

Scientists at the Suzumori Endo Robotics lab in Tokyo have developed the Superman Suit: a suit powered by hydraulic artificial muscles that allows it to perform superhuman tasks. In this video, the suit demonstrates the ability to complete 15 rotations around a bar, making anyone into a great gymnast. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved.…

OpenAI ‘considered’ building a humanoid robot: report

December 24, 2024

OpenAI has recently explored building its own humanoid robot, according to The Information. The report cites “two people with direct knowledge” of those conversations. The ChatGPT maker has been involved in the space for some time now, by way of financial backing. It has thus far invested in Figure and 1X, along with the “general…

Watch Boston Dynamics’ electric Atlas do a backflip

December 24, 2024

A little early holiday surprise from Boston Dynamics this week, as Santa suit-wearing electric Atlas performs a backflip. The feat occurs about 13 minutes into a new video, showcasing yet another trick in the humanoid robot’s arsenal. It’s worth noting that – unlike with humans – a robot performing a backflip isn’t necessarily more complicated…

Nvidia’s CES 2025 keynote: How to watch

December 23, 2024

Meet the robot with two Guinness World Records for basketball

December 19, 2024

A team of engineers at Toyota have spent years iterating on CUE6, the basketball shooting robot. CUE6 uses machine learning to adjust his posture and arm movement in order to take the perfect shot nearly every time. The robot holds the Guinness World Record for most consecutive basketball free throw by a humanoid robot after…

Slip Robotics snags $28M for its bots that can load a truck in five minutes

December 17, 2024

Drop by any given loading dock and a buzz of forklifts — loaded up with goods — can be spotted maneuvering in and out of truck trailers. This logistical dance can take up to an hour to fill a trailer, leaving truck drivers in idle limbo. The founders of Atlanta-based Slip Robotics say they’ve developed…

iRobot co-founder’s new home robot startup hopes to raise $30M

December 16, 2024

Colin Angle, one of the co-founders of Roomba maker iRobot, is raising cash for a home robotics venture. A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reveals that Angle’s new company, Familiar Machines & Magic, is trying to raise $30 million. So far, it has raised $15 million from a group of eight investors.…

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