Ex‑DeepMind Startup Eyes $11B
Physical Intelligence, a robotics startup founded by former DeepMind staffers, is reportedly negotiating a funding round that could value the company above $11 billion—showing investor appetite for research-led robotics teams. The move underscores that DeepMind alumni remain influential in creating high-valuation, tech-driven startups. (bloomberg.com)
Founded in 2024, Physical Intelligence’s listed co‑founders include Adnan Esmail, Brian Ichter, Chelsea Finn, Karol Hausman, Lachy Groom, Quan Vuong and Sergey Levine. (crunchbase.com)) In November 2025 the company completed a reported $600 million Series B that brought its valuation to $5.6 billion, a round led by Alphabet’s growth fund CapitalG. (siliconangle.com)) Bloomberg and TechCrunch name returning and prospective backers tied to the ongoing fundraise, including Jeff Bezos, Thrive Capital, Lux Capital, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Lightspeed Venture Partners. (bloomberg.com)) Physical Intelligence has publicly tested its software on robotic arms to fold laundry, make coffee and assemble boxes, and has released a vision‑language‑action model (π0.6) that the company says can more than double task throughput compared with non‑RL baselines. (bloomberg.com)) TechCrunch reported the startup employed about 80 people and had raised just over $1 billion before entering the current talks. (techcrunch.com)) Co‑founder Lachy Groom told TechCrunch the company has no timeline for commercialization, a posture that investors in the firm have reportedly accepted while funding extended R&D. (techcrunch.com))
