Agility Investor Day, Fort IPO, RealSense and RAI acquisitions,
Cybersecurity may be the missing piece in functional safety, particularly as AI is incorporated more fully into every aspect of the robotics stack, however the biggest gap is defining who is responsible for all the aspects of robot safety.
Much of the headline grabbing reports and actions are purely handwringing and blame shifting, meanwhile standards and enforceable regulations will take years to emerge. Years ago looking at robot ethics and safety from the Human-Robot Interaction side I realized that implementation of best practices would never happen without financial incentives, positive or negative.
One of the most illuminating conference series I’ve attended, We Robot, is not about the economics or investment into robotics, but about ethics and the law. The conference was founded in 2012 by Professors Michael Froomkin from University of Miami and Ryan Calo from University of Washington, previously Stanford. This was the first conference that really explored what happens ‘when the rubber hits the road’.
What alarmed me ten years ago, and seems to still be the prevailing viewpoints today, concerns the separation between the dangers of AI versus dangers of robotics.
Rarely is AI seen as a physical threat. Rarely are robots seen as capable of manipulating people. (Have we learned nothing from 2001: A Space Odyssey?) In reality, AI and robotics share the same dangers much more equally and this should become more obvious in this era of physical AI.
These days as commercial deployments of robots span multiple industries and customers, some influential viewpoints come from beyond academia, from enterprise software, and the insurance industry. Koop, who provider robotics industry insurance have seen significant increase in demand for insurance in the last five years, driven by customer contracts.
“The insurance requirement is the customer’s risk management outsourced to the vendor, which is why the cover companies buy shows what their customers demanded and the price shows what a dollar of robot revenue is believed to cost in future claims.” Koop: In Bots We Trust 2026
The International Federation of Robotics have seen a 24% surge in professional service robot orders in the last year, with global shipments increasing to almost 250,000 units in 2025, highlighting a successful shift to commercial automation. 1
At the same time, the global operational stock of industrial robots surged 9% to a record 5 million units in 2025, driven by an 11% jump in annual installations: Factories worldwide installed more than 600,000 new units over the year.2
As robot deployments expand, Koop see the price of robot liability falling by 69%, per dollar of revenue, over the last three years. The aggregate liability capacity deployed in the US for Physical AI in 2025 was $572M. The loss ratio is in the top 1%. These figures describe a category that is becoming insurable, well behaved and getting cheaper to cover.
The risk sits in what the data cannot yet show. The average company here was founded in 2019 and runs 25 robots; fleets arrive later than plans say; underwriters manage the risk through wording as much as through price. The controls the industry has built — safety frameworks and safe-stop systems — already go with materially lower rates. Koop: In Bots We Trust 2026
Now let’s see awareness of the risks of both AI and robots reaching the same market responsiveness!
From World Models to Working Machines: Physical AI in the Real World
One of the most interesting Physical AI sessions from CoreWeave’s recent FullyConnected conference focused on expensive and dangerous deployments. Moderated by CoreWeave’s SVP for Physical AI, Dr Richard Ahlfeld, with Nvidia’s Head of Robotics Ecosystem and Edge AI Product, Amit Goel, and Caterpillar’s VP of Physical AI Platforms & Construction Autonomy, Brandon Hootman.
When we introduce AI into our deterministic systems, it doesn’t mean that it replaces them, it means that it works with those deterministic systems. Brandon Hootman, Caterpillar
Model Development
- Multimodal models can incorporate video, lidar, audio, and machine data.
- Data annotation, labeling, synchronization, and contextualization remain major parts of the development process.
- Customers are involved early to identify valuable workflows and operational constraints.
Simulation and Data
- The development process cycles between simulation, real-world deployment, data collection, and model refinement.
- NVIDIA discussed combining physics-based simulation with neural or learned physics.
- Real-world data helps improve digital twins, generate synthetic data, evaluate policies, and address long-tail scenarios.
Infrastructure
- Physical AI requires data-center compute for training and augmentation plus edge compute for real-time operation.
- The supporting toolchain for data preparation, storage, training, evaluation, and deployment is as important as GPU availability.
Safety and Operations
- AI systems must operate alongside deterministic controls and functional-safety systems.
- Safety must be addressed through model training, monitoring, runtime safeguards, and zero-trust deployment environments.
- Caterpillar is adapting its product-development process to shorter, iterative release cycles.
If you enjoy Robots & Startups please restack. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Encord’s Long Horizon
It’s amazing conference season! The new Long Horizon conference from Encord is all about robotics, physical AI and autonomous vehicles, covering the hard business of putting robots to work in live deployments.
There is a stellar speaker list, but the ultimate value of an event is in the networking opportunities, not just the information. That’s where the Encord team have assured me that they’ve built in lots of hallway conversation space, as the conference is now running across four stages.
I’m really excited to be attending both days of the summit, and am happy to say that I’ve been given an exclusive promo code to share with the community – use SVR35 at Long Horizon for 35% off all tickets. There are already six hundred high-profile registrations from companies including Skild, Wayve (including Chief Scientist, Jamie Shotton), Boston Dynamics, Bear Robotics (CEO and CTO), Mercedes-Benz, and others.
Agility Investor Day, Fort IPO, RealSense and RAI acquisitions, and more
Some notable deals from September include Qualcomm acquiring PickNik Robotics to expand the open-source robotics navigation and manipulation framework. SoftBank Group acquiring full ownership of the Robotics and AI Institute (RAI) from Hyundai, pending CIFIUS review, and Cognex acquiring RealSense 3D depth-sensing business for approximately $500 million in cash. Agility and FORT Robotics also just announced a strategic partnership to advance humanoid robot safety. Field AI is also apparently raising a $700m venture round at a $10 Billion valuation.
Silicon Valley Robotics Investor/Startup Database
Every month or two we share updated startup information with accredited investors. These investors write checks anywhere from angel and seed stage to $5-50 million.
- Feedback from the startups – high quality inbound interest from investors.
- Feedback from the investors – incredible depth and range of robotics startups.
Are you a startup fundraising atm? Fill out our “For Investors Eyes Only” sheet.
If you’re an accredited investor and haven’t already signed up for the spreadsheet – Sign up here for great robotics deal flow!
🦾 Robotics Funding Rounds by Month – September 2026
·
Oct 3
Now that Q4 2026 is underway some IPOs to look forward to are Agility and FORT Robotics going public, via reverse merger. Agility’s Investor and Analyst Day is Tuesday October 6th, and I’ll be watching the Churchill Capital Corp XI stock price as well.
Our Venture Summits
- Hard Tech Venture Summit | Toronto, Canada October 20-21* Application is required to attend.
- Robotics Venture Summit | Silicon Valley, California December 6-9* Application is required to attend. IEEE Entrepreneurship is excited to be part of the 2026 IEEE-RAS 25th International Conference on Humanoid Robots.
If you enjoy Robots & Startups please restack. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/IkUVkNzv2_0?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
Petoi, OpenCat and Quaddle Robot Dog
4 days left to get your Petoi Quaddle: A Do-It-All Mini Robot Dog for Physical A ,an open-source playground of real-world robotics made accessible with OpenCat.
Final round of Coolest Thing Made in California contest Oct 5-8
This competition from California Manufacturing and Technology Association celebrates innovative products manufactured in California. There are plenty of robots and rockets (and robot/rocket technologies) in the finals!
Robotics News
Know a rising star in robotics? We want to hear from you. – Business Insider
Can we predict the work that robots do? Anthropic
Five Million robots Now Operate in Factories Globally – IFR
Meet Taku: Bay Area company’s AI robot loads washers, folds towels and stocks shelves – ABC 7
The Future of Wildfire Response: AI, Drones, and Robots – Mother Jones
Nvidia’s robotics lab is becoming a founder factory – Business Insider
Reliable Robots: Meet Johnson’s Dexterous Robotics Team – NASA
Agility Robotics Wants To Make 500 Humanoid Robots Safe, Not Just One – Forbes
In robotics, Google goes Android and Tesla goes Apple – The Information
Global Sales of Professional Service Robots Surge 24% – IFR
Robotics startups are courting university researchers. Microagi just hired eight. – Business Insider
Hegseth announces new four-star command for autonomous warfare – MilitaryTimes
GM’s Mary Barra says ‘I’m done making predictions’—but sees fully autonomous driving in 2028 – Fortune
Could Driverless Patrol Cars Be Next? N.C. Police Chief Pitches the Idea – Officer.com
Congratulations to these 10 inspiring winners of the latest Joanne Pransky Women in Robotics Scholarships. From high school to graduate studies let’s celebrate these future leaders.
Women in Robotics NewsMeet the winners of the Joanne Pransky Women in Robotics Scholarship
Joanne Pransky Women in Robotics Scholarship for October 2026…
4 days ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Andra Keay and Women in Robotics
Robotics Events
Want to host an event or reach the robotics community?
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!
Upcoming Events:
Circuit Launch Brew Review (SF Tech Week) – San Francisco – Oct 6th
Bots, Bevs and International Women in Robotics Day (SF Tech Week) – Mountain View – Oct 7
Autotech Council’s Annual Demo Day – Palo Alto – Oct 15
Maritime Dual Use Hackathon – San Francisco – Oct 16-18
Long Horizon Physical AI – San Francisco – Oct 20 -21 (use SVR35 discount code)
RobOpsCon26 – Mountain View – daytime Oct 22
Robotics Evening with Intel – Mountain View – Oct 22 (invite/application only)
Bots, Bevs & Devs – tbd – Nov4
FUSE – San Francisco – Nov 19
Bots, Bevs & Devs – tbd – Dec 2
IEEE Humanoids 2026 – Silicon Valley – Dec 6-9
* including SVR Venture and Manufacturing Summits – Dec 7
Highlights from IEEE Humanoids 2026:
- Registration now open – Early Bird closes on October 20th
- Rong Xiong and Moritz Bächer join keynote speakers, RJ Scaringe and Jerry Pratt
- 63% increase in paper submissions – Acceptance notification Oct 6
- 12 Accepted Workshops and Tutorials, plus 3 Special Summits
- NIST Humanoids 2026 Loco-Manipulation Challenge – expressions of interest are open now. Testbed humanoids are available thanks to our Partners.
Join the organizing team at Silicon Valley Robotics – bots&beer@svrobo.org
If you enjoy Robots & Startups please restack. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/global-sales-of-professional-service-robots-surge-24-percent
https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/five-million-robots-now-operate-in-factories-globally