Aseon Labs raises ten million dollars to build parking-space-sized pods that charge and clean robotaxis

Airwallex raises $320m at an $11bn valuation, betting on agentic finance

Airwallex huy động thành công 320 triệu USD trong vòng Series H, nâng định giá lên 11 tỷ USD, đồng thời công bố doanh thu thường niên 1,3 tỷ USD và khối lượng giao dịch 287 tỷ USD. Công ty tập trung phát triển "agentic finance" với hai sản phẩm mới: nền tảng tài chính tự động T:0 và ví kỹ thuật số Airi, trong khi sự tham gia của các quỹ crossover gợi ý khả năng IPO sắp tới.

Lập trình viên nên đọc bài này để hiểu cách các công nghệ tài chính tiên tiến như agentic finance, tự động hóa giao dịch và nền tảng AI được xây dựng từ cơ sở hạ tầng phần mềm, từ đó tìm hiểu về các xu hướng mới trong việc tích hợp AI vào hệ thống tài chính và ứng dụng trong thực tế.

Alan raises €480M led by Prosus at €5.5bn

French health insurtech Alan has raised €480M in a Series G round led by Prosus at a €5.5bn valuation, just three months after a previous €100M raise. The company, which now has over €1.2bn in total funding, is profitable in France, serves 1.1 million members, and posted €800M+ in ARR growing 53% year-on-year. Alan's pitch centers on 'prevention insurance' — bundling health cover, care navigation, and AI-driven health assistance into a single app to shift healthcare from reactive to proactive. The capital will fund expansion into new markets, deeper AI investment, and potential acquisitions. The deal is one of Europe's largest non-AI raises of 2025 and a rare bright spot for French tech amid declining startup funding.

Top Quantum Computing Investors in 2026

A comprehensive overview of the leading quantum computing investors in 2026, covering dedicated quantum VC funds (Quantonation, 55 North, Firgun Ventures), corporate venture arms (Google Ventures, IBM Ventures, Microsoft M12, Amazon), sovereign wealth funds (Temasek, Mubadala), and government-backed programs (In-Q-Tel, SGInnovate, HTGF). Private VC in quantum reached $4.9 billion in 2025, more than doubling the prior year. The piece profiles each investor's focus, confirmed portfolio companies, preferred funding stage, and geographic orientation. It also covers how to pitch quantum investors, key metrics they evaluate (qubit count, gate fidelity, coherence times, commercialization roadmap), typical funding amounts by stage, and the complementary roles of government grants versus venture capital for quantum startups.

LLMs help robots understand vague instructions and focus on key details

MIT CSAIL researchers developed 'Masked Inverse Reinforcement Learning' (Masked IRL), a system that uses two LLMs to help robots interpret vague human instructions and identify which environmental details matter for task execution. The first LLM elaborates on ambiguous prompts based on kinesthetic demonstration data, while the second scores environmental elements as relevant or irrelevant, masking unnecessary details. This approach requires nearly five times less demonstration data than comparable methods and outperformed baselines by up to 15% in correctly identifying unstated user preferences. A real robotic arm trained on 50 demonstrations successfully navigated around obstacles like laptops while completing tasks such as moving cups and wiping tables.

Robotaxis drives miles just to get cleaned and charged; this new startup wants to fix that

Aseon Labs, a Redwood City startup from Y Combinator's 2026 spring cohort, has raised $10M in seed funding to build parking space-sized automated pods that clean, inspect, and charge robotaxis in-city. The core problem they address is 'deadhead miles' — empty trips robotaxis make to distant depots — which hurt fleet utilization and profitability. Their pods use robotic arms, cameras, and vision-language-action AI models to handle routine maintenance autonomously, while flagging complex issues for human handling at central depots. The units are designed as temporary structures to avoid lengthy permitting and can be relocated if a site underperforms. No robotaxi contracts have been signed yet, but the company plans to build five prototypes and grow its team with the new funding.

Videos: Robot Grippers, Firefighting Robots, and More

A weekly curated collection of robotics videos from IEEE Spectrum, featuring highlights such as a disembodied robotic hand crawling on three fingers from Tangent Robotics, MIT CSAIL's SoftMimic approach for safer human-robot interaction, Agility Robotics' Digit navigating obstacles, an aggressive firefighting robot from DEEP Robotics, Unitree R1 humanoid performance, event cameras handling motion, and research on using AI-driven robots to understand whale communication. Upcoming robotics events including RSS 2026, IROS 2026, and Actuate 2026 are also listed.

Former Microsoft Quantum CTO’s New Chinese-Based Startup Lands Pre-A Funding

Taiyi Quantum, a six-month-old Shanghai-based startup, has raised 300 million yuan (~$44M USD) in a Pre-A funding round led by Gaorong Venture Capital and IDG Capital. The company is led by Liu Hongbin, a former Microsoft Azure Quantum Principal Architect who worked on Microsoft's neutral-atom initiative with Atom Computing. Taiyi is developing a ytterbium-based neutral-atom quantum computer, leveraging laser-trapped atoms as qubits. Ytterbium offers advantages including stable nuclear-spin qubit states, precise laser control, and reduced noise compared to alkali atoms like rubidium or cesium. The large raise for such a young startup signals growing investor confidence in China's quantum computing sector.