Born at Google, we got our start creating the self-driving car. Since then, we've continued to bring sci-fi ideas into reality to help solve some of the world's hardest problems.
Round size: Undisclosed
Google DeepMind says Gemini 4 Argon can turn ordinary human video into MuJoCo simulation code and a robot policy, enabling Apptronik's Apollo humanoid to land seven consecutive cornhole shots without bespoke robotics fine-tuning. The article also reports a tabletop task-completion improvement from 56% to 75%, an 87% score on Google-designed ERQA, and cautions that the demonstrations have not established broad generalization to complex industrial manipulation.
Chinese AI lab DeepSeek has agreed to lead a seed round for Winverse AI, a robotics AI startup founded by ex-Tencent scientist Hu Han, at a valuation of about $400 million. Meituan's investment arm Long-Z has also committed to the deal, which is not yet finalized. The investment marks one of DeepSeek's largest bets on a startup and signals its push toward real-world robotics applications like factory-floor humanoid robots.
Berg Insight forecasts that annual humanoid robot shipments will grow from 16,000 units in 2026 to 26 million units by 2040, representing a CAGR of 63.7 percent, with the global market value increasing from $890 million to $554 billion. The report identifies over 100 companies developing full-size humanoid robots, with strategic investors including NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Hyundai, and OpenAI strengthening their involvement as the industry moves beyond prototype development into early commercialization.