Do We Have Too Many Humanoids?
Waymo raises $16B, Amazon gives up on palm payments, iRobot acquired
We’ve got the latest robotics and automation news for you — huge funding rounds, Amazon throwing in the towel, and must-read market stats. And for those of you that missed last week’s Urban Autonomy Summit — select sessions are now available on YouTube.
PARTNER | Autonomous Vehicle Impact Report
Early AV deployments may be reducing driver utilization and pressuring pay—here’s what the data shows.
The 2026 Autonomous Vehicles Impact Report compares AV-active cities to nationwide benchmarks to identify early changes in driver productivity and earnings as autonomous fleets expand.
Our findings include:
Trips per hour declined nearly 2× faster in AV-active cities than nationwide
Hourly gross pay fell in Los Angeles (-3.7%), Phoenix (-0.4%), and San Francisco (-1.7%) while growing 1.8% nationwide
S&P Global projects AVs need pricing near $1 per mile to scale—and parity isn’t expected until ~2040–2041
Download the full report to understand how AVs may be impacting human drivers today—and what these early signals could mean next.
Delivery Robotics, Drones & AVs
People love delivery bots! New data from Starship Robotics shows that 97% of students love or like the company’s machines. Starship served 65 university campuses in 2025, traveling 1.5 million miles.
Waymo just raised a whopping $16 billion, valuing the AV leader at $126 billion. Alphabet remains the majority investor, with additional funding led by Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital. Waymo has now driven 127 million autonomous miles, while providing 15 million rides in 2025 alone.
Serve Robotics acquired Diligent Robotics, maker of Moxi The Robot — with a focus on healthcare applications. The acquisition was for $29 million, while Diligent had previously raised around $100M.
Tesla claims to be making progress with its Austin, Texas-based Robotaxi pilot, as the company has removed the safety drivers from the car’s front seat. Internet sleuths counter that the company is actually still using safety drivers, however, they’ve simply been moved to a second, trailing vehicle.
Medium-duty AV trucking player Gatik launched commercial operations, handling daily deliveries for Fortune 50 retailers in Texas, Arkansas and Arizona. The Mountain View, CA-based company now has $600 million plus in contracted revenue.
Humanoids
Israeli AV tech player Mobileye is getting into the humanoid space, with the acquisition of Mentee Robotics, for approximately $900 million in stock and cash. Mentee’s focused on a human-to-robot mentoring plus few-shot learning powered approach.
X Square Robot completed its Series A++ funding round, raising RMB 1 billion ($140M USD) for its wheeled humanoids and zero shot-based learning approach “robot brain.”
1X Technologies released a new world model for its NEO line of robots, allowing the humanoid to learn new tasks by watching online videos. (Better keep those bots off of TikTok!)
NYC-based Fauna Robotics unveiled Sprout, a “robot you want to be around,” built for a developer audience.
Fauna Robotics Too many humanoids?! Market research firm Gartner predicts that by 2028, under 100 companies will progress humanoid robots beyond experimentation, with less than 20 companies going live in production for supply chain and manufacturing uses. “The promise of humanoid robots is compelling, but the reality is that the technology remains immature and far from meeting expectations for versatility and cost-effectiveness,” said Abdil Tunca, Senior Principal Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice.
Back of House & Logistics Automation
Amazon acquired truck and trailer unloading startup Rightbot, folding the startup into Amazon’s Robotics Delivery and Packaging Innovation (RDPI) team. While terms were not disclosed, Amazon previously invested $4 million into the startup’s seed round, attracted to the company’s approach to unstructured unloading.
Rightbot
Farm & Sourcing Automation
Caterpillar partnered with NVIDIA. “As AI moves beyond data to reshape the physical world, it is unlocking new opportunities for innovation — from job sites and factory floors to offices,” said Caterpillar CEO Joe Creed. “Caterpillar is committed to solving our customers’ toughest challenges by leading with advanced technology in our machines and every aspect of business. Our collaboration with NVIDIA is accelerating that progress like never before.”
Kiosks, Retail & Self-Checkout
AI voice ordering firm Presto closed on $10 million in new funding, led by Metropolitan Partners Group, with participation from Remus Capital, Link Ventures, and several strategic angel investors including the CEO of ElevenLabs.
Amazon is discontinuing its Amazon One palm payment platform, which the ecommerce giant rolled out in the wake of the pandemic. Currently used by third party retailers, athletic facilities and gymnasia, the technology will be redeployed to healthcare settings.
Amazon is shuttering its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go branded markets, refocusing its efforts on Whole Foods and online delivery. The closure will affect around 70 locations, with the plurality based in California. In that case, it looks like the newest version of its Dash smart carts will be headed to Whole Foods only.
Industry Trends
Shenzhen Picea Robotics Co. buys the assets of Roomba-maker iRobot for pennies on the dollar, after the iconic robotics brand filed for bankruptcy.
In Other News
Tesla’s diner went from hot to flop in six months. Stream and Uber partner on AV deliveries. Zipline raises $600M+ for drone deliveries. Is San Francisco contemplating revoking ban on delivery robots? Job alert: Matternet seeks Business Development Manager. $100M+ seed rounds make up a growing share of venture funding. Chinese AV trucking startup DeepWay raises $173M ahead of IPO. Pipedream Labs launched Goods. Kodiak AI partners with Bosch.