Acumino, a Physical AI startup building foundation models for robots that handle repetitive industrial tasks, has raised an $11.7 million seed round led by Radar Ventures, with participation from LDV Partners, Big Pi Ventures and Japanese semiconductor maker MegaChips, among others.
Foundation models for the factory floor
Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Elliniko, Greece, with offices in Seattle and Auckland, Acumino is developing what it calls General Robotic Intelligence — a hardware-agnostic AI system designed to give robot arms humanlike dexterity on the long tail of industrial tasks that conventional automation cannot economically address. The company delivers its AI-powered robot workers on a subscription basis, betting that manufacturers would rather buy outcomes than integrate raw hardware.
A European contender in a US-China race
Acumino is far from alone in chasing robotic foundation models, but its Greek base sets it apart from a field concentrated in China and the United States. The startup was also one of a handful selected for Google DeepMind's accelerator program this year, giving it access to frontier AI research resources rarely available to European robotics companies. The round highlights how investor appetite for physical AI now reaches well beyond the usual hubs: robotics startups have raised more than $23 billion globally in 2026, closing in on 2025's full-year total with six months to spare.
What the money buys
The new capital will fund model training, expansion of Acumino's robot teaching infrastructure and commercial deployments with industrial customers in Europe and the United States. Strategic investor MegaChips also opens a route into Japanese electronics manufacturing, one of the world's densest robotics markets. The deal lands in a week that saw a cluster of robot-intelligence raises, from Proception's $11 million seed for dexterous robot hands to Tombot's $7 million Series A3 for its companion robot puppy, underscoring how quickly capital is spreading across the physical AI stack. For humanoid-scale ambitions, investors are writing far larger checks, as Agility Robotics' $2.5 billion SPAC deal showed last week.
Reporting based on coverage from the Association for Advancing Automation (A3).