State of the Machines: Capital Dispatch — Week of Jun 22, 2026

STARK raises €500M for defence-autonomy scale-up

German defence-autonomy startup STARK reportedly secured €500M in new funding at a €3.2B–€3.5B valuation, with backing from Founders Fund and Sequoia Capital.

The round follows a rapid valuation climb. STARK raised $62M in 2025 at a reported $500M valuation, crossed the €1B mark earlier this year, and is now one of Europe’s highest-profile defence-autonomy startups.

STARK develops unmanned systems across multiple domains, including the Virtus aerial system, Vanta unmanned surface vessels and Minerva command-and-control software.

The round lands in the middle of a broader German defence-autonomy and physical AI capital cycle. Alongside STARK’s €500M raise, NEURA Robotics announced a Series C of up to $1.4B earlier this month, Quantum Systems secured a €150M European financing package in February after raising €340M across 2025, Helsing raised €600M in 2025 and has been reported near a further $1.2B raise, while Agile Robots has been reported in talks for an approximately $800M round. Together, the activity reinforces Germany’s position as one of Europe’s deepest robotics, autonomy and defence-tech funding clusters.

Agility Robotics moves toward the public market

Agility Robotics agreed to go public through a merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI, valuing the company at a $2.5B pre-money equity value.

The transaction is expected to deliver more than $620M in gross proceeds, including about $420M from Churchill XI’s trust account and more than $200M from a PIPE led by Foxconn. The combined company is expected to trade under the ticker AGLT after closing.

Agility says the proceeds will support existing customer orders, wider commercial deployments, Digit v5 production scale-up and continued investment in its integrated robotics platform.

Agility would become the first pure-play humanoid robotics company on the US public market. Digit is already positioned around warehouse and manufacturing work, with customers and partners including Amazon, GXO, Schaeffler and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada.

AGILINK confirms unicorn round for dexterous hands

AGILINK / 临界点 says it has completed a near-RMB 1B financing round, taking the dexterous-hand company to a valuation of around $1B.

The unicorn round had surfaced in thinner English-language pickup in May, but Chinese reporting this week gave the cleaner confirmation: AGILINK says this is its fourth financing round in five months.

The company was formed in January 2026 out of the Zhiyuan Robotics / AgiBot ecosystem, and is already reporting unusual operating figures for such a young hardware company: profitability in its first full quarter, more than 8,000 OmniHand dexterous hands shipped, more than 10,000 grippers shipped, more than 1,000 units in regular operation, and over 50,000 hours of real operating data.

The new capital is being directed toward mass production, dexterous-operation data and Contact Intelligence model development.

Funding ledger

Date	Company	Type	Signal
Jun 23	STARK / EUR 500M	Growth funding	Defence-autonomy scale-up.
Jun 26	Wujie Power / AnyVerse / >$200M	Angel	Humanoid and embodied AI.
Jun 23	Lightwheel / RMB 1B	Strategic financing	Physical-AI data and robot evaluation infrastructure.
Jun 24	AGILINK / Near RMB 1B	Financing round	Dexterous hands, mass production and manipulation data.
Jun 23	Striding AI / Nearly $100M	Angel	Physical AI and humanoid deployment.
Jun 25	SENAD / RMB 300M	Series C	Warehouse logistics and loading robots.
Jun 22	Jiangxing Intelligent / Several hundred million RMB	C + D strategic rounds	Industrial physical AI and embodied controllers.
Jun 26	JuWei Technology / Several hundred million RMB	B1	Wheel-legged and quadruped robots for special scenarios.
Jun 26	DeepCybo / Several hundred million RMB	New financing	Humanoid and physical-AI stack.
Jun 24	Qingyan Precision / Several hundred million RMB	B3	Physical-AI data infrastructure.
Jun 24	ZhiYue Space Intelligence / Several hundred million RMB	Angel 5+	Robot brain and 4D simulator.
Jun 25	Yuguang Technology / RMB 100M-level	A / A+	Physical-AI vision chips.
Jun 24	Yunxiang Technology / Nearly RMB 100M	Series A	Counter-UAS and low-altitude security.
Jun 26	Qunqing Intelligent / Nearly RMB 100M	New financing	Industrial embodied AI and welding robots.
Jun 24	Jitai Aviation / Nearly RMB 100M	Series A	eVTOL and UAV avionics stack.
Jun 25	Almetra / EUR 16.3M	Series A	Industrial inspection and factory intelligence.
Jun 24	Acumino / $11.7M	Seed	Industrial robotics and physical AI.
Jun 24	Carvolix / EUR 10M tranche	Financing tranche	Medical mini-robots.
Jun 26	Aseon Labs / $10M	Seed	Robotaxi support infrastructure.
Jun 25	Askari Defense / $9M	Seed	Counter-UAS and drone interceptors.
Jun 25	Tombot / $7M	Series A3	Companion robotics.
Jun 23	Halo / HaloBraid / $7M	Seed	Service robotics and salon automation.
Jun 22	H3 Zoom / $3.6M	Series A final close	Inspection and asset intelligence.
Jun 23	Innok Robotics / >EUR 3.3M	Growth capital	Industrial AMRs and inspection robots.
Jun 22	Acodyne / EUR 2.5M	Pre-seed	Autonomous cargo UAV and unmanned eVTOL.
Jun 24	PIMT / JPY 50M	Seed / pre-Series A	Mobile unmanned retail robot.

Date	Company	Type	Signal
Jun 23	Kunlunxing / KunlunX AI / Several-billion-RMB cumulative	Cumulative financing update	Humanoid and embodied AI.
Jun 22	Dalian Kunda / Tens of millions RMB	Series A	Robotic aerospace assembly equipment.
Jun 26	Yunji Avionics / Tens of millions RMB	Pre-A + Pre-A+	Avionics and low-altitude aircraft stack.
Jun 25	Huiguang Innovation / Tens of millions RMB	Seed + angel	Tactile sensing and perception.
Jun 26	Shenkong Xinghe / Tens of millions RMB	Strategic financing	Companion robots and embodied-AI brain.
Jun 24	Suiqing Robotics / Tens of millions RMB	Angel	Mining and industrial robotics.
Jun 22	LISSOME / Tens of millions RMB	Series A	Kitchen robotics.
Jun 23	YiMeihua / Tens of millions RMB	Angel	Lightweight robot materials and magnesium alloy components.
Jun 24	PRODRONE / Undisclosed	Strategic investment / share acquisition	Industrial and defence drones.
Jun 23	Oversonic Robotics / Undisclosed	Strategic stake	Humanoid and industrial robotics.
Jun 25	Red Cliff / Undisclosed	Series C first close	Drone services and drone shows.

Capital Watch

Elroy Air announced a SPAC transaction with Columbus Circle Capital Corp II, with more than $165M in committed PIPE capital tied to scaling production of its Chaparral autonomous cargo aircraft. The deal gives the week a second US public-market route for physical autonomy.

The heavier moves are still in China. Robotics and autonomy companies are increasingly moving toward Hong Kong as a public-market route, with Bloomberg reporting earlier this month that Hong Kong had at least 46 robotics-related companies in its IPO pipeline, more than 10% of applicants.

Among this week's cluster: SEER Robotics completed its Hong Kong listing, Momenta moved through the post-hearing process with Reuters reporting a planned IPO launch targeting roughly $900M, while ROKAE and EACON added further pipeline signals across industrial robots and autonomous mining vehicles.

Coowa, the urban embodied-robotics company, has not completed an IPO, but reporting this week said it is preparing a Hong Kong listing and had raised more than $600M in its latest private financing at a valuation above $3B.