Robotics Startup Generalist Reaches $3B Valuation, Sources Say

The fresh capital totals nearly $200 million, according to a regulatory filing. It is an extension of a $400 million Series B round led by Radical Ventures that the company announced in June at a $2 billion valuation, the people said. The new capital brings the total round to $600 million.

Generalist and 8VC did not respond to requests for comment.

Generalist was founded in 2024 by former Google DeepMind researchers Pete Florence and Andy Zeng, along with former Boston Dynamics engineer Andrew Barry. It received early backing from 8VC, Radical Ventures, Nvidia, Union Square Ventures, Bezos Expeditions and AI researcher Fei-Fei Li. Until recently, the startup operated quietly with little publicity.

The company is developing an AI foundation model intended to work with various robots. It says its newly released Gen 1.5 model lets robots learn new tasks from video demonstrations as short as three to 12 seconds. Generalist is working with a handful of customers, using their feedback to tailor the model for specific use cases, according to one source.

Generalist is not alone in pursuing a brain for a broad range of robots. Competitors include Physical Intelligence, reportedly valued at $11 billion; SoftBank-backed Skild AI, valued at $14 billion; and Genesis AI, which was in talks as of last month to raise capital at a $3 billion valuation.

The funding surge reflects a bet by some investors that robotics may soon reach its own “ChatGPT moment,” in which robots can perform general tasks without being explicitly trained for each one. Because robots cannot be trained on the entirety of internet data the way large language models can, some venture capitalists warn that a truly general robotics model may still be years away.