Quantum inertial sensors have matched or exceeded conventional navigation accuracy in real-world field trials — on aircraft, naval vessels, and in orbit. Q-CTRL, Vector Atomic, and DeteQt are racing to replace satellite-dependent positioning for defence and space.
Insitro has raised 100M to build TherML, a modality-agnostic AI engine for drug discovery. Early pharma validation from Lilly and BMS.
Deep tech now accounts for 36% of global venture capital, up from 12% in 2016 — a structural reallocation driven by AI infrastructure, defense tech, and bioconvergence.
LA-based Orbital raised $5M pre-seed from a16z Speedrun to build AI inference data centers in low Earth orbit: fridge-sized satellites with 100 kW each, NVIDIA GPUs, and a 2027 demo on SpaceX Falcon 9.
Eon Systems demonstrated the first embodied whole-brain emulation of a fruit fly — 139,255 neurons running in a physics-simulated body. The achievement bridges connectomics and AI, but the gap to a human brain remains enormous.
Agility Robotics, the maker of the Digit humanoid robot, is going public via a $2.5 billion SPAC merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI, raising $620 million to scale production of its next-generation Digit v5 humanoid.
Defence robotics VC hit $49.1B in 2025 — doubling year-over-year. A market guide covering the $27.6B robotics surge, key players from Anduril to Helsing, and the structural shift that turned defence into venture capital's hottest bet.
In June 2026, Reed Semiconductor closed a $100 million funding round backed by several leading global semiconductor companies. The round was oversubscribed. Investors wanted in faster than Reed could allocate. The company builds power management chips for AI data centers from its headquarters in Warwick, Rhode Island. This is the