Funding rounds in AI wearables, humanoid robotics, and AI-driven biology in 2026
Recent 2026 financing events include a $2 m pre‑seed for AI lab wearables, a €1 bn raise for a German humanoid robot maker, a $1.8 bn loan for SoftBank’s robotics acquisition, and a $20 m round valuing an AI‑biology startup at $3.8 bn.
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
Gold Coast startup Bower secured a $2 million pre‑seed round to develop an AI‑driven operating system for scientific research delivered via smart‑glass wearables that capture visual, verbal and procedural data in the lab. The round was led by Brisbane venture firm TEN13 and included participation from Admiralty Capital Group, Edale Capital and several angels such as Heidi Health CTO Yu Liu and Dean Kelly. Proceeds will fund the Bower platform and PPE‑certified wearables over the next six months before expanding the product line, with early customers including Mount Sinai Hospital and Southern Cross University. [5]
Ukraine’s startup ecosystem showed a mixed first half of 2026, with Q1 funding of €228.9 million across 16 rounds, driven largely by Preply’s $150 million Series D, while Q2 fell to €16.3 million despite the same number of deals. Overall H1 activity summed to €245.2 million in 32 disclosed rounds, highlighting how a single large transaction can dominate totals. AI‑powered companies attracted roughly $302 million of the capital, outpacing non‑AI tech, and notable large rounds included Uforce’s $50 million seed and HOLYWATER’s $22 million Series A. [4]
Robotics
German firm Neura Robotics announced plans to raise up to €1 billion (about $1.2 billion) to commence production of a humanoid robot capable of heavy lifting and repetitive‑task automation, leveraging its AI software stack. The company, which already sells transportation robots for factories, previously closed a €120 million financing in January 2025 managed by Lingotto Investment Management and backed by the Volvo Cars Tech Fund among others. Neura’s target investors are being courted to support entry into the competitive humanoid market alongside rivals such as Tesla and 1X Technologies. [2]
Morrison & Foerster advised SoftBank Group on a senior term loan package totalling roughly $1.8 billion equivalent, comprising an €825 million tranche, an $800 million tranche and a €293 million multicurrency revolving facility. The financing is earmarked to fund SoftBank’s acquisition of ABB’s global robotics business, a leading supplier of industrial robots, automation and AI‑driven solutions. The loan structure provides dual‑currency flexibility for the cross‑border transaction. [6]
Genetic Engineering
Astromech, a spin‑out of Colossal Biosciences founded by Ben Lamm and Harvard geneticist George Church, closed a $20 million funding round that valued the company at $3.8 billion, nearly doubling its March 2026 valuation. The round was led by Bob Nelsen of ARCH Venture Partners and included Peak 6, NeoGenesis Capital, Builders VC and CA Investments, bringing total capital raised to $60 million. Astromech builds AI models trained on genomic data to forecast biological system changes, with applications in conservation, disease prevention, drug‑resistance monitoring and food‑supply security. The new capital will expand the research team, add training data from additional species and scale model training pipelines. [1][3]