Aviern: Unmanned cargo airplanes for autonomous airports (opens ycombinator.com)
Fixed-wing cargo drones for regional air freight and defense logistics; the company says 1,000 lbs over 1,000 miles for under $1,000.
From GeekWire: Defense tech startup Shield AI has completed its first full-scale X-BAT autonomous fighter prototype, keeping the company on track to open its 420,000-square-foot production hub in Des Moines, Wash., in spring 2027.
Fixed-wing cargo drones for regional air freight and defense logistics; the company says 1,000 lbs over 1,000 miles for under $1,000.
Path automates industrial welding; Georgian led, joined by a consortium including Yamaha Motor's venture arm.
Nominal sells an AI platform for hardware engineering and names Anduril as a major customer; the round triples its valuation to $3B in 8 months.
MasTec will deploy Gritt's bolt-on robotic attachments on utility-scale solar sites in several US states after live-site tests.
Lightspeed led and Insight co-led; TechCrunch notes Nominal claims Anduril as a major customer and that the valuation tripled in eight months.
GenRobot AI builds equipment and software for collecting human demonstrations used to train robots; the Beijing company raised a $100M Series A+, per TechNode.