DeepSeek pauses $71bn round and Humanoid secures $152m Series A in 2026
Mid‑2026 saw a high‑profile Chinese AI lab halt a multibillion‑dollar raise and a London robotics start‑up close a substantial Series A backed by European industrial groups.
Compiled automatically from the sources listed below and checked against Hyperuranios' own capital and research data. Every figure here traces to a linked source. Factual errors reported to the contact address are corrected in the article and noted here.
Artificial Intelligence
Protocol Labs’ artificial‑intelligence portfolio lists seven companies that have received its backing, including Bagel Labs, which works on distributed training of diffusion models, Leather Corp, which supplies sound for entertainment, and Numbers Protocol, a network for provenance of creative works generated by humans and AI. The portfolio also features Mosaia, a software developer focused on open AI, and other ventures such as Let AI and DePIN, illustrating the lab’s broad interest across AI infrastructure and applications, though no specific funding amounts are disclosed [2].
DeepSeek, the secretive Chinese AI laboratory, announced in July 2026 that it was suspending a second funding round that would have valued the company at roughly $71 billion, a 37 percent increase on its June close. The halted raise followed a $7 billion first round that attracted Tencent, battery maker CATL and the state‑backed National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, while founder Liang Wenfeng contributed about $3 billion personally. Proceeds from the earlier round were earmarked for building data centres, acquiring AI chips and expanding research teams, but the pause was triggered by Liang’s reaction to leaked remarks about US‑China AI competition [3].
Robotics
London‑based Humanoid raised $152 million in a Series A round at a $1.35 billion post‑money valuation, bringing total funding to $270 million. The round was led by Prime Movers Lab with strategic investors Bosch and Schaeffler, both of which also serve as suppliers and anchor customers; Bosch will manufacture the HMND 01 platform and Schaeffler will provide over half of the robot’s joint actuators through 2031. Humanoid plans to produce 150,000 wheeled humanoid units by 2030, targeting factory floor tasks such as box handling and tote logistics, and has secured deployment agreements for thousands of robots across Schaeffler’s global sites. The combined reports highlight the company’s ambition to become Europe’s first pure‑play humanoid robotics unicorn and to leverage regional industrial strengths [1][4].