Robotics Startups Raise $18.8 Billion in 2026, Surpassing Full-Year 2025 Record

Quick Facts

• Robotics startups have raised $18.8 billion globally in 2026, surpassing the $15 billion raised in all of 2025.
• The five largest deals include Saronic at $1.75 billion, Skild AI at $1.4 billion, and NEURA Robotics at up to $1.4 billion.
• Investors cite embodied AI, labor shortages, and aggressive Big Tech entry as the primary drivers of the surge.

Venture capital is flooding into robotics at a pace the industry has never seen. Global robotics startups have raised $18.8 billion in 2026 so far, already surpassing the $15 billion raised across all of 2025 and the $14.1 billion raised during the peak funding year of 2021. With more than six months left in the year, the sector is on pace to top $30 billion.

For context, the global robotics space raised roughly $4 billion in 2019. That figure climbed to $26 billion by 2025. The 2026 numbers represent a generational acceleration.

The Biggest Deals

Austin-based Saronic leads all 2026 robotics deals. The defense tech company, which builds autonomous sea vessels, raised $1.75 billion in a Series D round in March. Kleiner Perkins led the round, valuing the four-year-old company at $9.25 billion, more than double its Series C valuation from 2025.

Skild AI raised $1.4 billion in January, tripling its valuation to over $14 billion. The round came just seven months after the company’s $135 million Series B. SoftBank Group led the financing, with participation from NVentures, Macquarie Capital, Jeff Bezos, Lightspeed, Sequoia Capital, and Coatue.

Skild CEO Deepak Pathak described the company’s approach: “The Skild Brain can control robots it has never trained on, adapting in real time to extreme changes in form or environments. The model is forced to adapt rather than memorize — much like intelligence in nature.”

Germany’s NEURA Robotics announced a Series C of up to $1.4 billion. Tether, Qualcomm, Amazon, Nvidia, Bosch, Schaeffler, and the European Investment Bank all participated. CEO David Reger said the company aims to prove that globally relevant AI infrastructure companies can be built outside Silicon Valley.

AI-powered robotics firm Apptronik raised $520 million as an extension of its Series A in February, bringing that round’s total to more than $935 million. Backers include Google, Mercedes-Benz, B Capital, and new investor John Deere.

Rivian spinout Mind Robotics raised two rounds totaling $900 million. A $500 million Series A in March, co-led by Accel and Andreessen Horowitz, was followed by a $400 million round in May led by Kleiner Perkins. The company is building an AI-enabled platform to automate industrial and manufacturing tasks.

Beijing-based Shihang Intelligent, which develops water robots and unmanned equipment, raised $1 billion in a Series A on June 15, led by Beijing Shanghe Momentum Private Equity Fund.

What Is Driving the Surge

Investors who once viewed robotics as an expensive hardware bet are now chasing embodied AI startups, companies building artificial intelligence that operates in the physical world. That shift in perception is central to the funding boom.

Big Tech has moved aggressively into the space. Nvidia unveiled a standardized humanoid robot blueprint at its GTC Taipei conference. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman named robotics the company’s next frontier and began hiring. Meta acquired humanoid startup Assured Robot Intelligence and folded the team into its Superintelligence Labs unit.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has publicly described humanoids as a “multitrillion-dollar economic opportunity.” That framing is now showing up directly in how investors size and price rounds.

Demographic headwinds are also reshaping demand. Labor shortages driven by population decline in China, Japan, South Korea, and parts of Europe are creating sustained pressure on manufacturers and logistics operators to find automated alternatives. Morgan Stanley has cited labor shortages, safety considerations, and rising labor costs as the core economic forces accelerating adoption.

For software founders and enterprise executives, the scale and speed of capital entering this sector signals a coming wave of automation products, platforms, and integration challenges. Companies that manufacture, warehouse, or operate at physical scale will likely face procurement decisions around robotics within the next two to three years.

Read more: Sector Snapshot: Robotics Startups On Fire As Venture Funding Surges To Record Numbers In 2026