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California regulator tells robot-fighting startup REK to halt unapproved bouts - RobotHOT

California regulator tells robot-fighting startup REK to halt unapproved bouts

The California State Athletic Commission has sent a letter to technology startup REK ordering it to stop staging unapproved fights after it held a human-versus-robot match last month. On Sept. 18, Frankie LaPeña faced one of REK’s humanoid robots. The robot was remotely controlled by a human through a virtual reality system, according to the report. REK describes itself on its website as a “humanoid robot fighting league.” The robot in the match may have been an EngineAI product fitted with a head resembling the robot in “The Terminator.” REK CEO Sixx Liiv posted the commission’s notice on X on Sept. 30. The commission determined the earlier match was unapproved and told Liiv and REK not to hold, promote or...

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  • Geek+ unit to buy 20% stake in physical AI startup SEEN·E Robotics for 50 mln yuan

    Geekplus (02590.HK) said in a filing that its wholly owned subsidiary Beijing Geekplus has signed an investment agreement to subscribe for a 20% equity interest in SEEN·E Robotics after a capital increase, for 50 million yuan. SEEN·E Robotics, founded on Jan. 26, 2026, focuses on physical AI and aims to build a general-purpose embodied brain for real-world tasks. Based on the investment amount and the 20% stake, SEEN·E Robotics's post-money valuation would be about 250 million yuan.

  • Warehouse robotics startup Ultra raises $62 mln, deepens Physical Intelligence partnership

    U.S. warehouse robotics startup Ultra said it has raised $62 million and will deepen its partnership with robotics company Physical Intelligence. The financing consists of a $50 million Series A round led by Framework Ventures, with Y Combinator participating, and a $12 million seed round led by Y Combinator and Next View. Founded in June 2024 and headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, Ultra focuses on industrial and warehouse applications. Its OP1 industrial robot can load and seal various types of mailing bags and perform packing, sorting and kitting, the company said.

  • Shenzhen embodied AI startup KNOWIN raises Angel+++ round led by JD-linked fund

    Shenzhen-based consumer embodied AI company KNOWIN said it has completed an Angel+++ round worth hundreds of millions of yuan, led by a JD.com-linked fund, with Loyal Valley Capital, Nanshan Strategic Emerging Investment and Walden International participating. Proceeds will focus on expanding training data to improve GLOW's generalization across tasks, objects and home environments; deepening robot hardware R&D and advancing engineering validation and mass-production preparation for KNOWIN-X1; and recruiting senior embodied AI talent. KNOWIN has now completed five financing rounds: seed, Angel, Angel+, Angel++ and Angel+++. Its Angel++ round raised 500 million yuan, with Matrix Partners China and Redpoint China among investors. Founded in 2025, KNOWIN targets consumer home scenarios and aims to build embodied AI systems with physical bodies that can form a “perception-generation-execution-evolution” loop and interact continuously in real environments. Its folding dual-arm robot, KNOWIN-X1, is about 1.4 metres tall unfolded, 40 cm folded, weighs about 50 kg and has self-developed arms with a 6 kg payload.

  • China tactile robotics startup AGIMind Robotics raises tens of mln yuan in angel round

    Shenzhen-based tactile robotics startup AGIMind Robotics said it has raised tens of millions of yuan in an angel funding round, with investors including Lihe Capital, Hefei Industrial Investment and other institutional investors. The proceeds will be mainly used for production line construction, mass-production capacity optimization and R&D of tactile intelligent systems, the company said. Founded in 2025, AGIMind Robotics focuses on tactile sensing and fine manipulation skills for robots. It has launched the Lux visuotactile sensor series. Founder and CEO Zhang Yazhan holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Science and Technology of China and a PhD in robotics from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

  • Manus parent Butterfly Effect raises over $500 mln in record China agent-native funding

    Butterfly Effect, the parent of AI agent Manus, said it has completed a new funding round of more than $500 million, the largest ever raised by a China-based agent-native startup. The round was led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with existing investors Tencent, HongShan and ZhenFund also participating. The funding news follows Manus's launch of Manus 2.0 and Cue, a multi-agent group chat app, on Sept. 29. It was the company's first major update since it formally resumed independent operations on Sept. 1. Manus 2.0 uses Cascade, its in-house agent framework. The framework allows user-created projects to stay lightweight from the outset and invoke relevant specialized capabilities only when tasks actually require them.

  • Ashish Kumar, Former Tesla AI Lead Launches Robotics Startup

    Ashish Kumar, who previously led Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot AI initiative, announced the founding of a new startup focused on developing non-humanoid robots. The venture is reportedly seeking to raise approximately $100 million in funding to innovate within the robotics industry.

  • Nvidia in talks to invest another $1 bln in humanoid robot startup Figure

    Nvidia is in talks to invest an additional $1 billion in humanoid robot company Figure, extending a strategy that has shifted the chipmaker from financial investor to core technology supplier to the startup. Nvidia previously joined Figure's Series C round and provides hardware support for training and deploying Figure's Helix AI model. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has called the partnership a "robot flywheel": models are trained on Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips, validated on its Isaac Sim simulation platform and ultimately deployed on Nvidia GPUs inside the robots. The closed loop is accelerating Nvidia's strategic push into physical AI.

  • Zhongda Leader plans up to 530 mln yuan A-share private placement for embodied intelligence, automation projects

    Zhongda Leader Intelligent Transmission Co Ltd disclosed a preliminary plan for a 2026 targeted private placement of A-shares, seeking to raise up to 530 million yuan, with proceeds mainly earmarked for two production projects—embodied intelligence joint modules and distributed intelligent actuator units for industrial automation—and an R&D center upgrade.

    The company said the private placement is aimed at capturing opportunities in emerging industries such as embodied intelligence and seizing the window for domestic substitution of core components.

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