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Vision Lab raises $6M bringing real-world factory data to robotics foundation models

SAN FRANCISCO · JUN 3, 2026. Vision Lab, a startup founded by MIT and Stanford researchers, today announced the close of its $6M seed round, led by Race Capital, with continued participation from Y Combinator and new institutional backers including Foothill Ventures and 500 Global. The company provides real-world industrial

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Origami Robotics - The Dexterity Deadlock

February 12, 2026 · Quanting Xie, Tongzhou Liao, Yonatan Biskdrag to rotate · scroll to zoom TL;DR: Robot dexterity is stuck behind many unsolved problems. This post focuses on one that we think is underappreciated: the gearbox. High-ratio gearboxes break sim-to-real transfer, destroy force transparency, and are the

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A conversation with Ben Bolte on The State of Humanoid Robotics: Hardware, Intelligence, and Where the Opportunity Lives

A conversation with Ben Bolte — AI & Robotics Engineer, formerly K-Scale Labs, now at OpenAI About the Speaker Ben Bolte is a roboticist and AI engineer who recently joined OpenAI. He previously founded and led K-Scale Labs, building open-source general-purpose humanoid robots for embodied intelligence. Before

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The Dexterity Deadlocks: Why Robots Can Backflip But Can't Fold Laundry - And the CMU PhD Student Fixing It From the Hardware Up

Takeaways from Quanting Xie's presentation at CMU's Lab to Market, San Francisco — February 11, 2026 Increase a gear ratio by 100x and the reflected inertia increases by 10,000x. That single physics problem explains one of the biggest disconnects in robotics right now: we can build

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Founder Field Notes: What a Robotics Founder Taught Me About Why Robots Don’t Scale (and What Actually Works)

I recently had a long, candid conversation with a robotics founder who’s deep in the trenches - not building flashy demos, but trying to get robots deployed in real industrial environments. No press releases. No humanoid hype. Just real customers, real contracts, and real headaches. The conversation stuck with me

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Reflections on the Long Game: Timeless Lessons from a Veteran Silicon Valley Investor

In the ever-churning world of venture capital, it's easy to get caught up in the noise: the hype cycles, the fundraising frenzy, the relentless pursuit of the next unicorn. It is a rare and grounding experience to step away from that noise and sit down with a

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The Founder's Guide to Venture Debt: A Strategic Tool or a Hidden Trap?

As a founder, you're constantly navigating the fundraising landscape, balancing growth with the ever-present concern of dilution. When you're at the Series A stage, a new and powerful tool often enters the conversation: venture debt. But is it the right move for your company? This