U.S. Aims Anthropic's Mythos at Government Code

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The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is reportedly using Anthropic’s Mythos model to scan government code for security flaws, with audits already finding numerous vulnerabilities. Reuters has more here.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a bill requiring large AI developers to publish safety frameworks, measure catastrophic risks, report incidents, and use third-party auditors, as states move to regulate frontier models in the absence of federal standards. CBS Chicago has more here.

A newly documented ransomware operation called JadePuffer reportedly used an autonomous AI agent to carry out an entire attack chain, from reconnaissance and credential theft to lateral movement, persistence, privilege escalation, and data encryption. TechCrunch has more here.

This Humanoid Robotics Company Is Going Public, But Its CEO Isn’t Promising a Robot in Your Home Anytime Soon

Image Credits: Krisztian Bocsi / Bloomberg / Getty Images

By Connie Loizos

The humanoid robotics market is awash in money right now. Last week, AI2 Robotics, a Shenzhen-based startup that makes wheeled humanoid robots, raised roughly $735 million at a nearly $3 billion valuation. Earlier this year, Apptronik, an Austin-based maker of humanoid robots for manufacturing and logistics, closed a $935 million funding round valuing the company at more than $5.5 billion. Last fall, Figure AI, a San Jose-based startup developing general-purpose humanoid robots, self-reported that it closed on $1 billion in Series C funding at an eye-popping $39 billion valuation.

By comparison, Peggy Johnson, CEO of Agility Robotics, is surprisingly measured. We spoke by phone last week, just after the company announced plans to go public through a merger with Michael Klein’s Churchill Capital Corp XI, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. The deal values Agility at around $2.5 billion and is expected to raise more than $620 million in gross proceeds, the largest capital raise in humanoid robotics history. It hasn’t closed yet; the merger still needs shareholder approval and SEC review, and is expected to be completed later this year.

Agility was founded in 2015 as a spinoff from Oregon State University. Based in Salem, Oregon, the company makes bipedal humanoid robots designed to work in warehouses and factories. Its SPAC maneuver is notable for a few reasons. It would make Agility the first pure-play humanoid robotics company to trade on public markets, giving retail investors direct exposure to a sector that has so far been available primarily to deep-pocketed VC funds. It also offers a rare window into the finances of a business in a space where most competitors closely guard their numbers and even the state of the tech they are building.

Johnson — formerly executive vice president of business development at Microsoft, where she helped engineer the $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, and later CEO of Magic Leap, the once-hyped augmented reality headset maker — was careful throughout our conversation. She declined to offer forward-looking financial guidance, declined to disclose the bill of materials for Agility’s flagship robot Digit, and pushed back politely whenever questions veered toward speculation.

Asked why Agility is going public via a SPAC rather than raising another private round — a structure that skips the roadshow and pricing scrutiny of a traditional IPO — Johnson said much of it boils down to the first-mover advantage the company enjoys when it’s the first of its ilk to go public. For investors clamoring for shares in a buzzy robotics company, Agility is “an acceleration story and a timing story,” she said. The proceeds will also help Agility ramp up production at its 70,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Salem, Oregon, and fulfill an existing pipeline of customer orders.

Massive Fundings

Even Realities, a three-year-old startup based in Shenzhen, China, that makes camera-free smart glasses that project information into the wearer’s line of sight through optical displays, raised a $150 million pre-Series B round at a $1 billion post-money valuation. The deal was co-led by Meituan and previous investor Tencent. TechCrunch has more here.

Skello, a 10-year-old Paris company that helps restaurants, hotels, and retailers schedule frontline workers under local labor rules, manage shift changes, and catch payroll issues, raised a $228.4 million round led by Bridgepoint, with previous investors Partech and XAnge also digging in. Tech Funding News has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Bespoke Labs, a two-year-old startup based in Mountain View, CA, that builds realistic company-like environments where AI labs and enterprises train, evaluate, and improve agents for longer business tasks, raised $40 million in seed and Series A financing. 8VC led the seed, while Wing VC was the lead investor in the Series A, with Mayfield and The House Fund also participating. More here.

CurifyLabs, a five-year-old Helsinki startup that automates pharmacy compounding for pharmacists producing custom doses for children, cancer patients, and others unable to use standard drugs, raised a $14 million Series A round co-led by Sandwater and HealthCap, with Tesi and Lifeline Ventures also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $19+ million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Katalyze AI, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that connects pharmaceutical lab and factory data so AI agents can investigate manufacturing issues and document regulated quality work, raised a $10.5 million seed round led by Bonfire Ventures, with Inovia Capital, Ripple Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and Gokul Rajaram also chipping in. More here.

Smaller Fundings

Stoa, a four-year-old London startup that lets consumers and businesses place idle cash into fixed-term deposits that provide upfront perks from partner brands, raised a $2.4 million pre-seed round co-led by Bespokeist Partners and Ingenii Capital, with Force Over Mass Capital and Fuel Ventures also engaging. UKTN has more here.

Worldmodeldata, a one-year-old startup based in Cambridge, UK, that turns licensed video-game gameplay into structured training datasets for AI labs and robotics companies building models that predict physical-world outcomes, raised a $9.3 million seed round. Iona Star Capital was the deal lead. EU-Startups has more here.

New Funds

Omni Ventures, a new firm founded by former Apple executives Simon Lancaster and Sabrina Paseman, raised a $33 million fund to back pre-seed manufacturing-tech startups as AI, robotics, reshoring, and hardware automation pull investors back toward factory floors. Business Insider has more here.

Going Public

Scribe Therapeutics, an eight-year-old biotech based in Alameda, CA, that is developing genetic medicines for common diseases, filed for an IPO to fund clinical trials of its lipid-lowering candidates, including a PCSK9-targeting gene silencer that could require booster shots only once every decade or two. The company’s backers include Avoro Ventures, Avoro Capital Advisors, OrbiMed Advisors, and Andreessen Horowitz. Fierce Biotech has more here.

South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix, rival to Samsung and U.S.-based Micron, is planning to sell nearly 17.8 million shares in a U.S. IPO, the company said on Monday. Should its shares sell well (and there’s indication that they will), the company could raise around $28 billion, based on SK Hynix’s closing share price last Friday in Seoul. TechCrunch has more here.

Syntiant, a nine-year-old semiconductor and AI software company based in Irvine, CA, whose low-power chips run machine-learning models directly on devices, filed for a Nasdaq IPO. The company has raised a total of approximately $311 million from investors like M12, Applied Ventures, and Intel Capital. Reuters has more here.

People

Elon Musk lost his bid to overturn a jury verdict that found he defrauded Twitter investors by falsely casting doubt on the company’s bot numbers after agreeing to buy it, allegedly to drive down the stock and force a lower price or escape the deal. Damages could potentially reach $2.6 billion. Reuters has more here.

SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has put the company at the center of the AI boom through Arm, OpenAI, data centers, chips, and robotics, raising investor concern that the sprawling Japanese group is again overly dependent on its founder’s all-or-nothing instincts. The Financial Times has more here.

Anti-aging guru Bryan Johnson posted on X that he has an incurable autoimmune condition that is leading his stomach to eat itself. The New York Post has more here.

Layoffs

Microsoft’s Xbox plans to cut 3,200 jobs – or roughly 20% of its staff – and divest or spin out five game studios as new CEO Asha Sharma tries to reset a gaming business she told employees is “not healthy” after years of heavy spending and weak margins. Bloomberg has more here.

Post-Its

Essential Reads

U.S. Treasury analysts have drafted an internal report warning that an AI bubble could ripple through stock markets, private credit, data-center financing, cloud providers, chipmakers, and utilities, even as the Trump administration publicly casts AI as central to U.S. economic growth. NOTUS has more here.

Elite college students are skipping Wall Street, Big Tech, and even senior year to spe