Robotics startup Generalist reaches $3B valuation, sources say
The $200 million extension comes just months after the physical AI startup reached a $2 billion valuation.
Generalist, a robotics startup co-founded by former Google DeepMind researchers Pete Florence and Andy Zeng in 2024, has achieved a $3 billion valuation following a recent $200 million round of additional funding led by 8VC, according to sources. The fresh capital brings the company's total funding to $600 million, as disclosed in a regulatory filing. This new investment is an extension of a $400 million Series B round, announced in June 2024, at a $2 billion valuation, according to two people familiar with the funding.
Generalist's AI foundation model, Gen 1.5, is designed to work with various robots and can learn new tasks from video demonstrations as brief as 3 to 12 seconds long. The company has worked with a select number of customers, refining the model based on their feedback for specific use cases.
Despite the announcement of its record valuation, Generalist is not the only competitor in the race to create a versatile AI for robots. Other players include Physical Intelligence, valued at $11 billion, and Skild AI, backed by SoftBank and valued at $14 billion. Genesis AI, also aiming for a $3 billion valuation, is in talks to raise capital as of last month.
The surge in funding highlights investors' confidence that robotics may soon experience a "ChatGPT moment," where robots can perform various tasks without being explicitly trained for each one. However, some venture capitalists caution that developing a truly general robotics model, unlike large language models (LLMs) that can be trained on the entirety of the internet's data, may still be years away.
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