The $2B Physical AI Blitz: When Robots Leave the Lab

Two mega-rounds prove that AI's next frontier isn't software—it's the physical world.

Skild AI's $1.4B Robot Brain: The Omni-Bodied Revolution

When SoftBank, Nvidia, and Bezos all write checks, you're building more than just software.

• The Omni-Bodied Giant: Skild AI raised $1.4 billion in Series C led by SoftBank, with participation from Nvidia's NVentures, Jeff Bezos' Bezos Expeditions, Samsung, and Salesforce Ventures, catapulting the company's valuation to over $14 billion—more than triple its $4.5 billion valuation just seven months ago. The Pittsburgh-based startup builds the "Skild Brain," the industry's first unified robotics foundation model that can control any robot without prior knowledge of its exact body form.

• The Universal Brain Thesis: Unlike traditional models tailored to specific robot designs, the Skild Brain is omni-bodied and can control quadrupeds, humanoids, tabletop arms, and mobile manipulators. The model learns by watching human videos and practicing in physics simulations across 100,000+ robot forms. It can handle everything from loading dishwashers to navigating slippery terrain—if a machine can move, the Skild Brain can eventually operate it.

• The Takeaway: Founded in 2023, Skild AI grew from zero to $30 million in annual revenue in months and is deploying in security, warehouses, manufacturing, and data centers. With $1.83 billion in total funding and backing from the biggest names in tech, Skild is positioning itself as the "operating system for robots"—the foundational layer that powers the entire physical AI economy.

Zipline's $600M Drone Delivery Scale: When the Sky Becomes Infrastructure

Autonomous delivery just became an everyday staple across America.

• The Breakout Moment: Zipline raised $600 million at a $7.6 billion valuation, nearly doubling from $5 billion just 14 months ago. Led by Valor Equity Partners with participation from Fidelity, Baillie Gifford, and Tiger Global, the round fuels expansion to Houston, Phoenix, Seattle, and at least four U.S. states in 2026. Zipline surpassed 2 million commercial deliveries spanning 125 million autonomous miles, with U.S. deliveries growing 15% week-over-week for seven months.

• The Infrastructure Play: Founded in 2014, Zipline designs and manufactures its entire ecosystem—drones, logistics software, launch systems, and landing platforms. Platform 2 drones deliver directly to homes in as little as 10 minutes, while Platform 1 fixed-wing aircraft handle long-range enterprise deliveries over 120-mile round trips. This vertical integration creates defensibility that competitors like Amazon Prime Air, Wing, and Flytrex struggle to match.

• The Takeaway: Zipline proves that autonomous delivery isn't a science experiment—it's infrastructure at scale. With 2 million deliveries completed, zero serious injuries, and 15% weekly growth, Zipline is transitioning from early adopter phase to mainstream logistics infrastructure. A delivery happens every 30 seconds somewhere in the world—when deliveries are faster, cleaner, safer, and cheaper, demand doesn't just grow, it explodes.

The Pattern

Both Skild AI and Zipline represent the same investment thesis: physical AI infrastructure that scales across use cases becomes more valuable than single-application robotics.

• Skild AI ($1.4B): The universal brain controlling any robot for any task

• Zipline ($600M): The delivery infrastructure operating across continents and use cases

Both raised massive rounds this week. Both are deploying at scale in real-world environments. Both are building the foundational infrastructure that makes the physical AI economy possible.

The lesson: software AI dominated 2025. Physical AI will dominate 2026.

Sources: Skild AI Press Release, Crunchbase - Skild AI, SiliconANGLE - Skild AI, Reuters - Zipline, TechCrunch - Zipline, Innovation Village - Zipline

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The Market Pulse

1) 2026 Opens With Infrastructure Intensity: $3+ Billion Weekly Deployment

The venture market opened 2026 with extraordinary momentum, deploying over $3 billion across robotics AI, autonomous logistics, healthcare platforms, and AI infrastructure. Skild AI's $1.4 billion Series C headlines a week where investors validated foundational technology platforms while Saudi Arabia's $1.2 billion commitment to Humain signals sovereign nations treating AI infrastructure as strategic imperative. The pattern is unmistakable: capital flows to platforms building the rails that power the AI economy—from robot brains to data center networks to clinical decision support.

2) Healthcare AI Reaches $12 Billion Valuation

OpenEvidence closed $250 million Series D at a $12 billion valuation, led by Thrive Capital and DST Global. The "ChatGPT for doctors" platform has raised $700 million in under a year, demonstrating explosive growth as clinical decision support becomes mission-critical infrastructure. With backing from Mayo Clinic Ventures, Nvidia, and Google Ventures, OpenEvidence exemplifies healthcare AI's evolution from experimental tool to essential practice-changing platform.

3) AI Infrastructure Bottlenecks Attract Strategic Capital

Upscale AI emerged with $200 million Series A (led by Tiger Global) to rebuild data center networking for AI workloads, while Deepgram secured $130 million Series C at $1.3 billion valuation for real-time voice AI infrastructure. Both deals address fundamental infrastructure constraints: networking architectures designed for traditional compute can't handle AI training at scale, and voice AI requires specialized low-latency systems. These raises demonstrate that infrastructure enablers solving critical bottlenecks command premium valuations.

4) Sovereign AI Investment Accelerates

Saudi Arabia's National Infrastructure Fund committed up to $1.2 billion to Humain for 250 megawatts of AI data center capacity. This state-backed investment—announced at Davos by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—signals that nations view AI infrastructure as strategic assets comparable to energy or defense. Humain's mandate to become Saudi Arabia's "digital backbone" reflects growing recognition that AI sovereignty requires domestic compute capacity at scale.

📌 TL;DR

• Capital: $3B+ weekly deployment concentrated in robotics AI, autonomous logistics, and healthcare platforms

• Strategy: General-purpose AI systems (robots, clinical tools) commanding infrastructure-level valuations

• Validation: Healthcare AI reaching $12B valuations; robotics AI hitting $14B on general-purpose promise

• Sovereignty: Nation-states investing billions in domestic AI infrastructure as strategic imperative

Sources: Tech Startups - January 21 Funding News, Tech Startups - January 14 Funding News, Crunchbase - Biggest Funding Rounds Week of Jan 6-12, Bloomberg - Zipline $600M Round, Bloomberg - Upscale AI Series A

Latest Fundraises from Major Firms (PE, VC, and Institutional Investors)

Venture Capital & Growth

• a16z (Andreessen Horowitz): Raised $15B across its fifth growth fund ($6.75B), second American Dynamism fund ($1.176B), second apps fund ($1.7B), second infrastructure fund ($1.7B), fifth bio+healthcare fund ($700M), and other strategies ($3B) in its biggest fundraising haul ever, taking 18% of all VC fundraising of 2025 (Axios)

• Lux Capital: Raised $1.5B for its ninth and largest fund to date to focus on science and national security (TechCrunch)

• BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners: Raised $12.5B for a targeted $30B data centers and energy infrastructure fund partnership with Microsoft, Nvidia, xAI, and UAE's MGX (Bloomberg)

• Catalio Capital (KKR-backed biotech investor): Raised over $325M for its third life sciences-focused private credit fund (citybiz)

• Dharana Capital (Mumbai-based VC): Raised its second fund in the amount of $250M (EconomicTimes)

• Morpheus (VC): Raised $100M for a targeted $150M third fund (AltAssetsPE)

• IL Ventures (Israeli VC): Seeking to raise over $100M for a second fund to continue to focus on deep tech (Ynetnews)

• Arkin Capital (Herzliya, Israel): Raised $100M for its third fund focused on biotech companies (VentureCapitalJournals)

• Rosberg Ventures (VC firm of 2016 F1 world champion Nico Rosberg): Raised $100M for its third fund (TheSportsPlaymaker)

• SEMCAP (growth equity investor): Raised $125M for its debut fund targeting food and nutrition (AltAssetsPE)

• Blue Earth Capital (impact investor): Raised over $100M for a debut secondaries fund (NewPrivateMarkets)

• Antler (Singapore-based VC): Raised $160M for its second fund focused on early-stage companies in AI and other sectors, closed a second U.S. fund and has raised a total of $510M in capital commitments across its funds over the past year (LinkedIn)

• Social Leverage (Arizona and San Diego VC): Raised an $85M fifth fund focused on seed-stage fintech and vertical AI (newnex.io)

• Superorganism (San Francisco VC): Raised a $25.9M first fund to invest in companies working to slow extinction and build technology for conservation (citybiz)

• Belief Capital (New York VC): Raised a $20M debut fund backing young technical founders at the pre-seed and seed stage (Sifted)

Private Equity & Credit

• Ares: Raised $7.1B for its debut private credit secondaries strategy, including a $1B JV with Mubadala (Bloomberg)

• Sixth Street: Raised $4.4B for a third European private credit fund (SixthStreet)

• Benefit Street Partners (credit unit of Franklin Templeton): Raised $10B for its second real estate credit fund (multihousingnews)

• Monroe Capital: Raised $6.1B for its fifth lower middle market private credit fund (YahooFinance)

• Lindsay Goldberg: Raised $4.9B for its sixth flagship middle market PE fund (themiddlemarket)

• Banner Ridge Partners: Raised $4.2B for its sixth PE secondaries fund (citybiz)

• BV Investment Partners: Raised $2.4B for its eleventh tech-sector focused PE fund (PRNewswire)

• Warburg Pincus: Raised $3B for a third fund targeting financial services (connectmoney)

• KKR: Raised $2.5B for its second Asia-focused private credit fund (Mingtiandi)

• AIP Management (Nordic energy and infrastructure investor): Raised $2.3B for a targeted $3.5B fifth fund (Bloomberg)

• Eir Partners: Raised $1B for its third fund focused on healthcare and tech-enabled services (WSJ)

• H.I.G. Capital: Raised $1.9B for its fourth European lower middle market PE fund (themiddlemarket)

• Harvey Capital (L/S credit hedge fund of ex-King Street partner Paul Goldschmid): Raised over $1.8B for its debut fund (Bloomberg)

• Onex: Raised a $1.6B continuation vehicle for edtech firm PowerSchool, insurance claims administrator Sedgwick, and HVAC group Fidelity from Neuberger Berman, Apollo's S3, SWF GIC, and StepStone Group (PEInsights)

• Bansk Group: Raised $1.45B for its second fund focused on consumer health, food & beverage, household products, and personal care (PRNewswire)

• Apheon (European middle market PE): Raised $1.5B for its sixth midcap buyout fund (Apheon)

• New Mountain Capital: Raised $1.2B for its second growth fund (Businesswire)

• RRJ Capital (Singaporean PE firm): Raised $1.1B for a debut private credit fund focused on APAC (Bloomberg)

• Davidson Kempner (hedge fund): Raised over $1.1B for its second asset-backed private credit fund (PrivateDebtInvestor)

• Bruin Capital (sports-focused investment firm): Raised a $1B from Apollo co-founder Josh Harris' 26North and PE firm TJC (SportsBusinessJournal)

• Parthenon Capital: Raising a $1.7B continuation vehicle to extend ownership of credit rating firm Kroll Bond Rating Agency (AInvest)

• Guidepost (growth equity investor): Raised $520M for its fourth flagship fund (Businesswire)

• Goldman Sachs's European private credit strategy: Raised a $350M commitment from Danish pension Industriens (ipe)

• Point72 Ventures: Raised a $280M continuation vehicle from fintech investment platform Portage and Goldman Sachs Alternatives in a deal which will see Portage assume management of numerous Point72 Ventures not included in the CV (fintechfutures)

• Servier Ventures (French pharma firm): Launched a biotech-focused VC fund with $230M (Servier)

• Jadwa Investment (Saudi): Seeking to raise $200M for its flagship private credit fund (PEWire)

• Commonfund's PE arm (OCIO): Raised $187M for its latest co-investment vehicle (AltAssetsPE)

Top Jobs

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Interesting Podcasts from the past week

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• Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg: Why You Should Reinvent Yourself Every 4 Months

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