Manufacturing AI startups have raised $32.7B across 551 funded deals since January 2024, with a median deal size of $18.7M. Bot Memo’s analysis of 836 companies tagged under the Manufacturing vertical shows a sector where humanoid robotics and foundation-model approaches are pulling the biggest rounds, while the classic industrial automation categories (predictive maintenance, quality control, digital twins) still anchor the deal volume. The United States accounts for 396 of those 836 deals (47.4%), with the UK, Germany, and China emerging as the other centers of gravity.
On this page
- Manufacturing AI Startups Raised $32.7B Across 551 Deals Since 2024
- The Top 20 Manufacturing AI Startups Ranked by Total Funding
- Robotics and Humanoid AI Dominate Manufacturing Investment
- Where Manufacturing AI Startups Are Building: US Leads, UK and Germany Follow
- From Seed to Series G: How Manufacturing AI Funding Stages Break Down
- 5 Manufacturing AI Use Cases Reshaping the Factory Floor
- FAQ: Manufacturing AI Startups
- Methodology: How Bot Memo Identified These Manufacturing AI Startups
Manufacturing AI Startups Raised $32.7B Across 551 Deals Since 2024
Manufacturing AI startups are attracting capital at a pace that stands out among industrial verticals in Bot Memo’s dataset. Across 551 funded deals tracked since January 2024, total disclosed manufacturing funding reached $32.7B, with an average deal size of $59.4M.
That average is skewed by a handful of mega-rounds from Skild AI, Rapidus, Figure, and Apptronik. The median deal of $18.7M paints a more representative picture of where most companies in this sector actually raise. Seed and Series A rounds account for 277 of the 551 funded deals (50.3%), a sign that early-stage manufacturing AI is still in an expansion phase.
The AI in manufacturing market is projected to reach $155.04B by 2030, growing at a 35.3% CAGR from a 2025 base of $34.2B. Venture capital is front-running that growth: companies like Skild AI raised $1.7B in tracked rounds to build foundation models for robotics, while Hadrian secured $260M to automate aerospace parts production.
For context on how AI capital flows across sectors, see Bot Memo’s breakdown of AI startups by industry vertical.
The Top 20 Manufacturing AI Startups Ranked by Total Funding
Below are the 20 highest-funded manufacturing AI startups in Bot Memo’s dataset, ranked by total disclosed funding (Jan 2024 to Mar 2026). Where a company raised multiple rounds, amounts are combined. The list excludes companies that the Manufacturing taxonomy captures but that operate primarily in AI chips, data centers, or materials extraction.
| Rank | Company | Total Funding | Latest Stage | HQ | What They Build |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Skild AI | $1.7B | Series C | Pittsburgh, US | Foundation model for robotics |
| 2 | Rapidus | $1.7B | Growth | Tokyo, Japan | Advanced 2nm semiconductor fabrication |
| 3 | Figure | $1.675B | Series C | Sunnyvale, US | Autonomous humanoid robots |
| 4 | Apptronik | $923M | Series A Ext. | Austin, US | Humanoid robots for industrial use |
| 5 | Mind Robotics | $500M | Series A | Palo Alto, US | AI-native industrial robots and dexterous factory automation |
| 6 | Rhoda AI | $450M | Series A | Palo Alto, US | Robot foundation models trained on internet video |
| 7 | FieldAI | $405M | Venture | Irvine, US | Robotic AI platform for industrial robots |
| 8 | Sila | $375M | Series G | Alameda, US | Silicon anode materials for EV battery production |
| 9 | Divergent Technologies | $337M | Series D+ | Torrance, US | AI-powered digital metal additive manufacturing |
| 10 | Galbot | $300M | Growth | Beijing, China | General-purpose humanoid robots |
| 11 | Periodic Labs | $300M | Seed | San Francisco, US | AI-powered robotic labs for materials discovery |
| 12 | Recursive Intelligence | $300M | Series A | Palo Alto, US | AI-driven automated semiconductor chip design |
| 13 | Spirit AI | $290M | Series B | Beijing, China | Vision-language-action models and humanoid robots (Moz1) |
| 14 | LimX Dynamics | $269M | Series B | Shenzhen, China | Humanoid robots (TRON 2, Oli) for industrial settings |
| 15 | Hadrian | $260M | Series C | Torrance, US | Automated aerospace and defense parts manufacturing |
| 16 | Dexory | $245M | Series C | London, UK | Autonomous scanning robots and AI digital twins for warehouses |
| 17 | Freeform | $234M | Series D | Hawthorne, US | Autonomous metal manufacturing |
| 18 | Mujin | $233M | Series D | Tokyo, Japan | Intelligent robot controllers and digital twins |
| 19 | Arglass | $230M | Growth | Valdosta, US | AI-integrated sustainable glass production |
| 20 | VulcanForms | $220M | Series D | Devens, US | Digital metal additive manufacturing |
Source: Bot Memo analysis of 836 manufacturing-tagged deals (Jan 2024 to Mar 2026).
Three companies stand out for the speed of their ascent. Skild AI reached a $14B valuation in January 2026, approximately 30 months after founding, raising $1.7B across tracked rounds including a $300M Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and a $1.4B Series C led by SoftBank Group. Figure closed a $1B+ Series C at a $39B post-money valuation in September 2025, building on a $675M Series B that included participation from Microsoft and OpenAI.
Apptronik combined $923M across two rounds, with Google among the lead investors in its $520M Series A extension.
At the other end of the spectrum, Periodic Labs, founded in 2025, raised a $300M seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, one of the largest seed rounds in manufacturing AI history. The company is building AI-powered robotic labs to discover new materials.
Mind Robotics, a Rivian spin-out, raised a $500M Series A co-led by Accel and Andreessen Horowitz to build AI-native industrial robots. Rhoda AI raised $450M at Series A, led by Khosla Ventures, for robot foundation models trained on internet-scale video data.
Robotics and Humanoid AI Dominate Manufacturing Investment
The tag data shows where the money concentrates. Of 836 manufacturing AI companies tracked, 536 carry an Industrial Automation tag, 240 are tagged Robotics, and 131 involve Predictive Maintenance. The standout shift is humanoid robotics, a sub-category that barely registered in manufacturing venture data before 2024.
Four of the top seven companies by funding, Skild AI ($1.7B), Figure ($1.675B), Apptronik ($923M), and Mind Robotics ($500M), build humanoid robots or the AI brains that power them. Robotics startup funding topped $6B in the first seven months of 2025, with humanoid companies capturing a disproportionate share.
This is not just a US phenomenon. Galbot builds general-purpose humanoid robots from Beijing. LimX Dynamics, based in Shenzhen, raised $269M for its TRON 2 and Oli humanoid lines. Spirit AI, a 2024 Beijing-based startup, raised $290M from Chaos Investment and YF Capital for its Moz1 vision-language-action humanoid platform. Mujin, a Tokyo-based company founded in 2011, raised $233M in Series D funding from NTT Group to scale its intelligent robot controllers and digital twin technology for warehouse and factory automation.
The pattern is consistent with adjacent verticals. Bot Memo’s analysis of top logistics and supply chain AI startups shows robotics dominating that sector’s funding too. Warehouse automation and humanoid deployment share the same technology stack.
Where Manufacturing AI Startups Are Building: US Leads, UK and Germany Follow
The geographic breakdown across 836 manufacturing AI deals shows a US-dominated market with several meaningful contenders.
| Country | Deals | Share |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 396 | 47.4% |
| United Kingdom | 75 | 9.0% |
| Germany | 60 | 7.2% |
| Canada | 40 | 4.8% |
| India | 39 | 4.7% |
| China | 27 | 3.2% |
| Switzerland | 22 | 2.6% |
| France | 21 | 2.5% |
| Singapore | 16 | 1.9% |
| Australia | 13 | 1.6% |
Source: Bot Memo analysis of 836 manufacturing-tagged deals (Jan 2024 to Mar 2026)
The US leads with 396 deals (47.4% of the sector), but the top-funded company outside North America is Japanese. Rapidus raised $1.7B in growth capital from the Japanese government and private-sector partners to manufacture 2nm semiconductors, part of Japan’s industry ministry budgeting approximately ¥1.23 trillion for semiconductor and AI development in fiscal year 2026, nearly quadrupling prior-year support. Rapidus and Recursive Intelligence represent a distinct AI-for-semiconductor sub-category, where AI accelerates the design and production of next-generation silicon.
Germany’s 60 deals reflect its Industry 4.0 heritage. The country has historically led smart manufacturing adoption, and its startup ecosystem now applies that expertise to AI-powered quality control and predictive maintenance.
The UK’s 75 deals may surprise given its relatively small physical manufacturing base, but the country’s strength in AI research translates to manufacturing software startups even when physical production happens elsewhere. Dexory is one example: a London-based company raising $245M for autonomous warehouse robots that ship worldwide. A similar pattern appears among construction AI startups reshaping the built environment, where UK companies build the software layer for global deployment.
China’s 27 deals include three of the top 14: Galbot, Spirit AI, and LimX Dynamics. All three build humanoid robots, reflecting China’s strategic prioritization of embodied AI for industrial applications.
From Seed to Series G: How Manufacturing AI Funding Stages Break Down
Manufacturing AI funding follows a wide funnel. Of 551 funded deals, early-stage rounds dominate by volume while late-stage rounds dominate by dollars.
| Stage | Deal Count | Share of Funded Deals |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | 142 | 25.8% |
| Series A | 135 | 24.5% |
| Series B | 84 | 15.2% |
| Pre-Seed | 33 | 6.0% |
| Series C | 35 | 6.4% |
| Growth | 28 | 5.1% |
| Series D+ | 11 | 2.0% |
| Series D | 9 | 1.6% |
Source: Bot Memo analysis of 551 funded manufacturing AI deals (Jan 2024 to Mar 2026). Major stages shown; smaller categories such as Venture, Angel, and Grant are not listed.
Seed rounds (142 deals) and Series A rounds (135 deals) together account for 50.3% of all funded manufacturing AI deals. That early-stage concentration suggests the sector is still expanding. New companies are entering at a rate that outpaces consolidation.
The funding stage range is unusually wide. Sila raised $375M in a Series G, having been founded in 2011: a 13-year journey from lab to scaled production of silicon anode materials. At the other extreme, Periodic Labs raised $300M at the seed stage in 2025, just months after founding.
This stage diversity matches patterns in real estate AI companies, where physical-world AI applications tend to require more capital and longer timelines than pure software plays.
Divergent Technologies sits in the middle: a 2014 vintage that reached Series D+ ($337M) by building an AI-powered digital manufacturing platform for aerospace and defense. Its investors are betting on a platform model where AI optimizes the entire production process from design to fabrication.
5 Manufacturing AI Use Cases Reshaping the Factory Floor
The tag data across 836 companies shows how AI for manufacturing splits across five distinct use cases. Each pairs machine learning or generative AI with deployed hardware on the shop floor, and each is backed by real funding.
Predictive Maintenance (131 companies)
Predictive maintenance deployments have cut equipment downtime by 30 to 50% in documented case studies. In Bot Memo’s dataset, 131 companies carry the Predictive Maintenance tag. Mujin integrates predictive maintenance into its robot controller platform, using sensor data, machine learning analytics, and digital twins to anticipate failures before they halt production lines.
Quality Control and Computer Vision (136 companies)
136 manufacturing AI companies focus on quality control, using computer vision to detect defects at speeds no human inspector can match. Hadrian applies AI-driven quality inspection to precision aerospace parts, where a single defect can ground an aircraft.
Autonomous Assembly and Robotics (240 companies)
The largest cluster. From humanoid robots (Figure, Apptronik, Galbot, Spirit AI, LimX Dynamics, Mind Robotics) to robotic arms (FieldAI, Rhoda AI), 240 companies build autonomous manufacturing systems. The shift from fixed automation to adaptive, AI-driven robots is the defining trend in this category.
Digital Twins (90 companies)
90 companies build digital twin technology: virtual replicas of physical manufacturing systems that enable simulation, optimization, and remote monitoring. VulcanForms integrates AI-driven simulation and real-time in-process monitoring across its metal additive manufacturing platform, connecting machine data to closed-loop process optimization.
Supply Chain Optimization (147 companies)
147 companies apply AI to manufacturing supply chains: demand forecasting, inventory optimization, and logistics coordination. This use case overlaps heavily with the top logistics and supply chain AI startups vertical, reflecting how manufacturing and distribution AI are converging.
FAQ: Manufacturing AI Startups
Which manufacturing AI companies have raised the most funding?
Skild AI ($1.7B) and Rapidus ($1.7B) lead manufacturing AI funding, followed by Figure ($1.675B) and Apptronik ($923M). Humanoid robotics and advanced semiconductor fabrication dominate the top of the list, based on Bot Memo’s tracking of 836 manufacturing AI deals since January 2024.
How is AI being used in manufacturing?
AI applies to manufacturing across five primary use cases: predictive maintenance (131 companies in Bot Memo’s dataset), quality control via computer vision (136 companies), autonomous assembly and robotics (240 companies), digital twin simulation (90 companies), and supply chain optimization (147 companies). Industrial Automation is the most common tag, appearing in 536 of 836 tracked companies.
How much venture capital is going into manufacturing AI?
Manufacturing AI startups raised $32.7B across 551 funded deals from January 2024 through March 2026, with a median deal size of $18.7M and an average of $59.4M. Seed and Series A rounds account for 50.3% of all funded deals, indicating the sector remains in an expansion phase.
What is Industry 4.0 and how does AI fit in?
Industry 4.0 refers to the integration of digital technologies (IoT sensors, cloud computing, and AI) into manufacturing processes. In Bot Memo’s dataset, 104 companies carry an Internet of Things tag and 84 carry Edge AI, both core Industry 4.0 technologies. AI adds the intelligence layer: turning sensor data into predictive models, automating quality decisions, and enabling autonomous production. It increasingly connects to the manufacturing execution systems (MES) and ERP platforms that run factory operations, turning shop-floor data into real-time decisions.
What are the top humanoid robotics startups for manufacturing?
The highest-funded humanoid robotics companies in manufacturing include Figure ($1.675B), Apptronik ($923M), Mind Robotics ($500M), Galbot ($300M), Spirit AI ($290M), and LimX Dynamics ($269M). These companies span US and Chinese ecosystems, with Skild AI and Rhoda AI providing the foundation models that power adjacent humanoid and industrial robotics platforms. See Bot Memo’s analysis of AI startups by industry vertical for robotics across all sectors.
Methodology: How Bot Memo Identified These Manufacturing AI Startups
This analysis is based on 836 AI startup deals tracked in the Bot Memo database from January 2024 through March 2026.
Data sources: Public funding announcements monitored across hundreds of sources weekly, including company press releases, regulatory filings, and financial news coverage.
Filters applied: Companies tagged with the “Manufacturing” industry vertical in Bot Memo’s taxonomy. This includes sub-categories such as Industrial Automation, Robotics, Predictive Maintenance, Digital Twin, and Supply Chain Optimization.
Top 20 curation: The Manufacturing vertical captures some companies whose core business sits closer to AI chips, data center infrastructure, or materials extraction than to using AI inside manufacturing processes. Those companies were excluded from the Top 20 to keep the ranking focused on AI applied to manufacturing.
Funding data: All amounts in USD. Non-USD amounts converted at the exchange rate on the date of announcement. Of the 836 total companies, 551 had disclosed funding amounts totaling $32.7B.
Company ranking: Ranked by total disclosed funding across all tracked rounds. Where multiple rounds exist for the same company (e.g., Figure’s Series B and Series C), amounts are combined.
Limitations: Undisclosed rounds are excluded from funding totals. Some companies operate across multiple verticals; a robotics company tagged Manufacturing and Logistics appears in both vertical analyses.
About the author
Editorial Staff
The Editorial Staff at Bot Memo is a team of writers, analysts, and AI agents dedicated to mapping the global AI startup ecosystem. Led by Chintan Zalani, the team tracks thousands of funding rounds, classifies companies across verticals, and distills it all into actionable intelligence for investors and founders.
