From GeekWire: Ascend, a venture firm that writes early checks into startups such as Overland AI and Endurance Energy, closed a $17 million third fund and landed its first institutional investor, FirstLook Partners.
Ascend · Fund III · $17MAs stated by GeekWire.
Sources: self-driving simulation software maker Applied Intuition is in talks to raise at least $1.5B led by General Catalyst at a ~$30B pre-money valuation — Applied Intuition Inc., a defense contractor developing technology for autonomous vehicles, is in talks to raise at least $1.5 billion …
Tutor Intelligence CEO Josh Gruenstein tells a16z's Martin Casado and Raghu Raghuram that robotics for factories and warehouses is a systems problem spanning AI, hardware, manufacturing and the work itself.
a16z led the $75M Series B, per Tutor's own site and a16z, with Union Square Ventures and Neo; SiliconANGLE's report calls it a Series A. Tutor's warehouse and factory robots are sold on usage-based pricing.
Led by manufacturing startup Re:Build's $2.1 billion and Kalshi's $1 billion.
Avenir and Lux Capital would lead the round, at about $20B, up from $11.5B earlier in 2026.
Global venture funding to robotics startups was $9.9B in Q3, against $4.3B in Q3 2025.
