Physical Intelligence, the two-year-old robotics startup founded by former Google DeepMind researchers, is in talks to raise roughly $1 billion in fresh funding at a valuation exceeding $11 billion. The Information first reported the discussions, which would nearly double the company’s $5.6 billion valuation from just four months ago.
That’s a staggering trajectory for a company that didn’t exist before March 2024.
📈 From Zero to $11 Billion in Two Years
Physical Intelligence’s funding history reads like a speedrun:
- March 2024: $70M seed round
- November 2024: $400M Series A at a $2B valuation (Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Thrive Capital)
- November 2025: $600M Series B at $5.6B (led by Alphabet’s CapitalG)
- March 2026: Discussions for ~$1B at $11B+
Founders Fund is set to participate in this latest round, with Lightspeed Venture Partners also in talks. Returning backers Thrive Capital and Lux Capital are expected to join as well.
🤖 “ChatGPT, But for Robots”
Co-founder Sergey Levine, a well-known robotics researcher from UC Berkeley, has described the company’s mission as building “ChatGPT, but for robots.” Physical Intelligence is developing general-purpose AI foundation models that allow robots to interact with the physical world, rather than programming each robot for a single narrow task.
The founding team includes AI academics from Stanford, UC Berkeley, and former Google DeepMind staffers. That pedigree explains why investors keep writing bigger checks. The bet is that the same “foundation model” approach that transformed language AI (GPT, Claude) will do the same for robotics.
🔍 Why This Matters
This raise signals two things about the current AI investment landscape.
First, capital is flowing heavily into “embodied AI,” the intersection of AI models and physical robotics. While most AI funding in 2024-2025 chased language models and chatbots, investors are now placing massive bets on AI that can manipulate objects, navigate spaces, and operate in the real world.
Second, valuations in AI robotics are accelerating faster than even the LLM space did at a comparable stage. Doubling from $5.6B to $11B in four months, without a major public product launch, shows how much conviction top-tier VCs have in this category.
For practitioners and builders, the takeaway is clear: robotics foundation models are becoming the next major AI frontier. Companies like Physical Intelligence, Figure AI, and others are attracting the kind of funding that typically reshapes entire industries.
⚠️ One Caveat
The deal is still in early stages, according to The Information. Terms could shift before anything is finalized. But even the discussion itself tells you where the smart money is headed.
Physical intelligence, the ability for AI to act in the physical world, may be the defining AI challenge of the next five years. And investors are pricing it accordingly.
Full details are available in the original report from The Information.