Unichem acquires Loomia to accelerate entry into the humanoid ‘skin’ market

therobotreport.com Aug 18, 2026

Unichem acquires Loomia to accelerate entry into the humanoid ‘skin’ market

Curated by Shubham · TechCapsules · Aug 18, 2026

AI-summarised brief · reviewed before publication

Unichem Co., a South Korean leather‑material producer, has acquired Loomia Technologies Inc. for 8.6 billion won ($6 million) to enter the electronic‑skin market for humanoid robots and smart mobility interiors. Loomia’s LEL technology bonds flexible circuits to cloth and leather, overcoming bending‑disconnection issues. The deal, executed via a reverse triangular merger, will merge Unichem’s 50‑year leather‑processing expertise with Loomia’s tactile‑sensing kits, targeting North American robotics firms and automakers such as Volkswagen. Both companies will retain key engineers and appoint co‑CEOs Maxey and Kim Han‑joo.

💡 Why It Matters

· The acquisition positions Unichem as a supplier of next‑generation “smart skins,” a critical component for humanoid robots that require realistic touch feedback.
· It signals a strategic shift toward high‑tech materials, expanding Unichem’s footprint beyond traditional leather into the rapidly growing physical‑AI sector.

Read full article on therobotreport.com

Relativity Networks raises $22 million to bring a faster kind of fiber…

Relativity Networks secured $22 million in SAFE note funding from Rhapsody Venture Partners, Bell Ventures Inc., and Faster Than Glass LLC, and a $40 million order from an unnamed hyperscaler. The company specializes in hollow‑core fiber, which transmits data 30 % faster than conventional fiber by guiding light through a vacuum core. CEO Jason Eisenholz argues the reduced latency—down from five to 3.5 microseconds per kilometer—enables data centers to span larger distances while maintaining performance, potentially reshaping multi‑campus deployments.

💡 Faster fiber could let data centers expand geographically without sacrificing speed, altering how AI workloads are distributed across campuses. This shift may redefine the physical limits of large‑scale compute infrastructure.

fortune.com · Aug 19

Exclusive: Accounting AI startup Rillet reaches unicorn status with $1 billion valuation.…

Rillet, a two-year-old startup developing an AI-native accounting platform, has secured a $100 million Series C funding round, achieving a $1 billion valuation and joining the ranks of AI-era unicorns. The investment was led by ICONIQ, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Oak HC/FT, Bain Capital Ventures, and others. This marks Rillet’s third fundraise in twelve months, pushing total capital raised past $200 million. CEO Nicolas Kopp stated the company aims to alleviate the administrative burden on CFOs, allowing them to reclaim personal time rather than replacing finance professionals. Rillet currently serves over 600 customers, including Neuralink and Mercor, with 40% of its client base now outside the tech sector. ICONIQ’s Seth Pierrepont will join the board, citing Rillet’s leadership in AI-native accounting infrastructure.

💡 Rillet’s rapid expansion into non-tech industries like waste recycling and film production proves AI-native finance tools are becoming essential infrastructure for the broader economy, not just Silicon Valley. By enabling a three-person finance team to manage a $2 billion revenue operation, the platform demonstrates how AI agents can drastically reduce headcount requirements for complex financial oversight.

techcrunch.com · Aug 19

AI isn’t close to curing cancer. This startup says it knows what…

Biotech startup Vivodyne argues that AI drug discovery is hindered by a lack of causal biological data, relying instead on animal testing or single-cell studies. To address this, the company developed HIVE, modular robotic labs that autonomously grow and dose twenty types of human tissue. CEO Andrei Georgescu claims these systems generate the complex, living-tissue data current AI models lack, noting that existing models often only predict outcomes in mice. While industry leaders like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman have touted AI’s potential to cure cancer, actual results remain limited, with few AI-designed drugs advancing to late-stage trials. Vivodyne, spun out of the University of Pennsylvania, recently opened a large facility near San Francisco. The company reports high predictive accuracy for its liver, airway, and bone marrow tissues compared to human trials. Having raised nearly $80 million, Vivodyne aims to provide pharmaceutical partners with reliable human-relevant data before expensive clinical trials, potentially reducing the high failure rate of drugs that succeed in animal tests but fail in humans.

💡 Vivodyne challenges the industry’s reliance on static cellular snapshots by providing dynamic, causal data from living human tissues. This approach directly addresses the critical bottleneck where 90% of animal-effective drugs fail in human trials, offering a tangible path to validate AI predictions before costly clinical testing begins.

siliconangle.com · Aug 19

Inference chip startup Etched raises another $700M at $21B valuation

Inference chip startup Etched Inc. has secured an additional $700 million in funding, led by Jane Street, with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, and Bain Capital Ventures. This latest round more than doubles the company’s valuation to $21 billion, following a recent $300 million investment backed by Nvidia Corp. Founded in 2021, Etched pivoted to creating inference accelerators supporting various model architectures. Its first prototype, manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., recently entered production. Jane Street became the first customer, installing an Etched-powered rack in its data center last month. Etched also operates a 2-megawatt AI cluster in San Jose for prospective clients. The startup claims its chips operate at under half the voltage of competitors, enabling higher FLOPs density. Additionally, Etched’s custom racks feature an internal interconnect that reportedly completes certain communication tasks in 700 milliseconds, compared to 4,000 milliseconds for rival chips.

💡 Etched’s rapid valuation surge and early adoption by a major financial firm validate the market’s shift toward specialized, energy-efficient hardware for AI inference. By demonstrating significant performance gains through low-voltage architecture and faster interconnects, the startup challenges established players to rethink efficiency standards in data center deployments.

quantumcomputingreport.com · Aug 19

Quantinuum Secures $1.5M in City and State LEDA Funding to Expand R&D…

Quantinuum has secured a $1.5 million joint incentive package from the State of New Mexico and the City of Albuquerque to expand its research and development center in Albuquerque. The funding, split evenly between state and municipal LEDA funds, will finance the conversion of a vacant site at 5501 Wilshire into a cleanroom‑equipped laboratory focused on integrated photonics for trapped‑ion quantum processors. The new hub will deepen collaborations with Sandia, Los Alamos, and UNM, supporting the company’s chip‑scale photonics roadmap.

💡 The investment signals a growing federal‑state partnership in quantum hardware, positioning Albuquerque as a key node in the national quantum ecosystem. It also accelerates the commercialization of photonic components critical to scalable trapped‑ion systems.

techcrunch.com · Aug 18

Wispr raises $280M at $2B valuation as it looks beyond dictation

Wispr, the AI dictation startup, secured $280 million in a Series B round led by Menlo Ventures, valuing the company at $2 billion. The funding, bringing total capital to $361 million, will expand its reach into meeting transcription with a new note‑taker tool. Existing investors such as Notable Capital, NEA, and 8VC participated, while new backers include Acrew and Forerunner. Wispr also unveiled a new model, Canto, to cut dictation error rates from 30% to under 10%.

💡 The investment underscores the growing demand for accurate, AI‑powered transcription in professional settings, positioning Wispr to challenge established players and drive innovation in real‑time speech processing.