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NVIDIA has discussed investing an additional USD 1B in Figure AI, The Information reported Oct 7, citing a person familiar with the matter. Figure is seeking fresh capital at a ~USD 38B pre-money valuation — roughly flat to the round a year ago, when it raised over USD 1B at the same valuation (USD 39B post-money Series C, Sept 2025). NVIDIA is an existing investor from that round. The reported talks come as Figure executes its USD 3.5B Nscale compute agreement, expandable to USD 6B+ (DroidHunt, Sept 10), builds its Index training-data project, and rolls out Helix 2.5. No completed deal has been established.
Why it matters: Another USD 1B would deepen NVIDIA's position across the humanoid stack — chips, compute, equity. A flat ~USD 38B valuation would suggest the market is no longer paying a premium for Figure's frontier-lab story without delivery numbers.
Sources: finance.sina.com.cn finance.sina.com.cn
Mecka (New York/Toronto, founded 2024) announced a USD 60M Series B led by Sequoia Capital on Oct 7, with new investors NVIDIA, Microsoft's M12, Qualcomm Ventures and Samsung; angels include DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, Frank Slootman and former Tesla Optimus head Milan Kovac. Mecka pays people to record everyday tasks wearing body sensors and sells structured motion data to robotics labs; its EgoVerse dataset holds 1,362 hours across 80,000 episodes from 2,087 demonstrators. The company says it passed a USD 100M annualized revenue run rate in June 2026 and targets USD 300M by year-end (company-reported). TechCrunch reported a ~USD 500M valuation; total raised is ~USD 128M.
Why it matters: Human-demonstration data is becoming a standalone infrastructure layer — the Scale AI play for robotics. Sequoia, NVIDIA and M12 buying the picks-and-shovels side hedges which humanoid maker wins; the claimed run rate, if real, makes data collection one of the first revenue-generating layers of the stack.
Sources: techfundingnews.com techstartups.com
UBTECH and FAW-Volkswagen signed a strategic cooperation agreement, announced Oct 8 via UBTECH's WeChat account, to develop and test humanoid robot applications for logistics and build smart-manufacturing demonstration scenarios. It extends an existing relationship: Walker S Lite has run vehicle quality-inspection trials at FAW-VW's Qingdao plant. The announcement names no robot model, order size, contract value or timetable. UBTECH also claimed a peer financials comparison places it first globally in revenue and humanoid sales — using a self-defined full-size category (≥160 cm, ≥200 TOPS, non-toy); IDC's H1 2026 tracker instead ranked Agibot #1 with ~8,600 units (DroidHunt, Sept 30).
Why it matters: A second task domain at a major Volkswagen joint venture moves UBTECH from single-task inspection pilots toward broader factory logistics — the workload humanoids must crack for volume. With no quantities or dates, this is still trial-stage commitment, not a purchase order.
Sources: autonews.gasgoo.com humanoidsdaily.com
Tags: ubtech deployment china company-claimed
China's National Intellectual Property Administration published a BYD design patent for an "embodied intelligent robot" on Oct 9, CnEVPost reported. Images show a bipedal humanoid with articulated fingers, an oval head and exposed waist/leg mechanics, described for service, education and industrial use. BYD told China Securities Journal on July 28 it planned to unveil a humanoid in August at its Di Space venue; no formal debut has happened. EVP Stella Li said in June she hopes to eventually place 2–3 robots at each BYD dealership and sees home/service robots as a huge market, sellable through BYD's car-dealer network.
Why it matters: The world's largest NEV maker has manufacturing scale, a retail channel and its own factory demand — a credible late entrant. But a design patent covers appearance only, and the slipped August debut says the program is behind its own stated schedule.
Sources: cnevpost.com
Tags: byd product-launch china reported
Beijing BASAL Intelligence (本溯智能), founded July 21, 2026 by eight embodied-AI researchers from Tsinghua, Peking University and other schools, has raised a seed round led by 5Y Capital (五源资本), with Ivy Capital, Linear Capital and WestSummit Capital participating, PE Daily (投资界) reported Oct 8. Amount undisclosed. The company is building "action-native" embodied foundation models targeting post-deployment task adaptation rather than pre-training alone.
Why it matters: China's embodied-AI funding is migrating toward "brain" plays; a seed-stage bet on action-native models from top-school researchers shows investors are still funding fresh technical theses despite talk of consolidation.
Sources: finance.sina.com.cn
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