Robotics startup Generalist reaches $3B valuation, sources say
techcrunch ·
Robotics startup Generalist has reached a $3 billion valuation after raising nearly $200 million in additional capital led by 8VC, according to sources familiar with the funding. The financing extends the company’s $400 million Series B, which was announced in June at a $2 billion valuation, bringing the round’s total to $600 million. Founded in 2024 by former Google DeepMind researchers Pete Florence and Andy Zeng and former Boston Dynamics engineer Andrew Barry, Generalist has backing from investors including Radical Ventures, Nvidia, Union Square Ventures, Bezos Expeditions, and Fei-Fei Li. The startup is developing an AI foundation model for different types of robots and says its Gen 1.5 model can learn new tasks from video demonstrations lasting three to 12 seconds. Generalist is working with a small number of customers to adapt the model to specific applications. Its fundraising reflects growing investor interest in general-purpose robotics, although some venture capitalists believe a broadly capable robotics model may still be years away because robots cannot use internet-scale training data as easily as large language models.
techcrunch