Skild AI Series A (2024)

American robotics-AI company (Pittsburgh, founded 2023 by former Carnegie Mellon professors Deepak Pathak and Abhinav Gupta) building the 'Skild Brain', an omni-bodied foundation model designed to control any robot (quadruped, humanoid, arm, mobile manipulator) without per-body retraining, trained on human video and physics simulation. Raised a ~$1.4B round (Jan 2026, led by SoftBank, with NVIDIA's NVentures, [Bezos expeditions](/companies/bezos-expeditions), and others) at a ~$14B+ valuation; total funding reported >$2B. Builds the robot brain, not hardware.

Amazon is the largest deployer of physical-AI robotics in the world by fleet count, with more than 1 million robots deployed across its global fulfillment network as of mid-2025, a count that continues to climb in 2026. The robot-to-human ratio across Amazon's operations is approaching 1:1, with roughly 1.5 million human employees. Amazon's physical-AI strategy is structurally vertically integrated: the company manufactures its own robotics platforms through Amazon Robotics (the subsidiary formed from the 2012 acquisition of Kiva Systems), operates autonomous vehicle robotaxi service through Zoox (acquired 2020), pilots external humanoids including [Agility robotics](/companies/agility-robotics) Digit, and acquired the Covariant founding team in August 2024 to accelerate AI deployment across robotics. The company's next-generation Shreveport, Louisiana fulfillment center deploys 10× more robots than a standard facility and serves as the orchestration testbed for Amazon's full robotics platform stack. Amazon's editorial significance is structural vertical integration unmatched by any other operator in physical AI. While most operators evaluate humanoids from external vendors (GXO, BMW, Toyota), and while most robot makers depend on external customer deployments (Figure, Agility, Apptronik), Amazon owns the entire stack: manufactures its own platforms, operates its own deployments, develops its own AI through Covariant talent, and runs its own autonomous-vehicle service. This puts Amazon in a category by itself among physical-AI operators globally.

Carnegie Mellon University is home to the [Robotics Institute](/companies/cmu-robotics-institute), founded in 1979 as one of the world's first and largest robotics research departments. CMU's robotics programs span autonomous vehicles (winner of the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge), humanoid robotics, medical robotics, and space robotics. Notable spinoffs include [Aurora Innovation](/companies/aurora-innovation) and [Nuro](/companies/nuro).

American technology-focused investment management firm founded in 1999 by [Philippe Laffont](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Laffont) and Thomas Laffont, with $67 billion in assets under management as of September 2025. A "Tiger Cub" hedge fund (Laffont trained at Julian Robertson's Tiger Management), Coatue invests across both public and private markets with a focus on technology, media, and telecommunications. The firm has been a significant backer of physical-AI and robotics companies including [Figure](/companies/figure-ai), [Cobalt Robotics](/companies/cobalt-robotics), and [Reliable Robotics](/companies/reliable-robotics), as well as AI infrastructure leaders like [OpenAI](/companies/openai), Anthropic, and Databricks. Coatue publishes influential AI market research framing "physical AI" (humanoids, industrial automation, autonomous vehicles) as a $6T+ TAM.

Lightspeed Venture Partners is a multi-stage venture capital firm investing in enterprise, consumer, and frontier technology. Based in Menlo Park with offices in Israel, India, and China. Investments include [Snap](/companies/snap), Affirm, MuleSoft, and Nest Labs.

Sequoia Capital is a US venture capital firm — one of the most successful VC firms in Silicon Valley history. Investments include Apple, Google, [Nvidia](/companies/nvidia), Tesla, Airbnb, and numerous robotics/AI companies. Three separate entities: Sequoia Capital US, Sequoia China (now HongShan), Sequoia India/SE Asia (now Peak XV).

SoftBank Group is a Japanese multinational conglomerate and investment holding company headquartered in Tokyo, founded in 1981 by [Masayoshi Son](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masayoshi_Son). Through its SoftBank Vision Funds and direct holdings, it is one of the world's largest technology investors, with major stakes in [OpenAI](https://openai.com), Arm Holdings, and historically [Boston Dynamics](/companies/boston-dynamics). The group operates SoftBank Robotics, which developed the Pepper humanoid social robot, and has committed over 30B USD to AI infrastructure and OpenAI investments

Bezos Expeditions is the personal investment vehicle of Jeff Bezos, founder of [Amazon](/companies/amazon) and Blue Origin. Invests across technology, space, and frontier companies.