Robotics startup Generalist hits $3 billion valuation amid major funding round

Generalist, a robotics startup founded in 2024 by former Google DeepMind researchers Pete Florence and Andy Zeng, along with former Boston Dynamics engineer Andrew Barry, has reached a valuation of $3 billion following a significant funding round led by 8VC. The additional capital, totaling nearly $200 million, extends a $400 million Series B round announced in June at a $2 billion valuation, bringing the total funding for the round to $600 million. Generalist and 8VC did not respond to requests for comment. The company is developing an AI foundation model capable of enabling robots to learn new tasks from short video demonstrations, as brief as 3 to 12 seconds. It is currently working with a small number of customers to refine the model for specific use cases. Generalist is not the only player in the field, with competitors such as Physical Intelligence, valued at $11 billion, and Skild AI, backed by SoftBank and valued at $14 billion, also pursuing similar goals. Genesis AI was reportedly in talks to raise capital at a $3 billion valuation. Investors are betting that robotics could soon reach its own 'ChatGPT moment,' allowing robots to perform general tasks without explicit training for each one. However, some venture capitalists caution that a truly general robotics model may still be years away due to the limitations in training robots on internet-scale data. The funding surge highlights growing interest in the potential of AI-driven robotics. Marina Temkin, a venture capital and startups reporter at TechCrunch, reported the development.