TechCapsules

Tutor Intelligence Inc., a spin‑out of MIT CSAIL, announced a $75 million Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz, bringing its total funding to $117 million. The capital will accelerate training of its frontier robot foundation models and expand manufacturing of its two‑armed “Sonny” and mobile “Cassie” robots. Tutor’s full‑stack platform uses a “data flywheel” that captures real‑world manipulation data from fleets of internet‑connected robots operated remotely by human “tutors,” feeding the data back into AI models to improve capability, [...]

Tokyo‑based Nagoshi Studio announced its closure this week, confirming that its debut title, Gang of Dragon, will not be released. The studio, founded by Yakuza series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi in 2021, had unveiled a crime‑drama trailer at The Game Awards 2025 featuring actor Ma Dong‑seok. Months earlier, publisher NetEase withdrew a required £33.1 million (≈$44.4 million) investment, leaving the project unfunded. The funding cut reflects NetEase’s broader retreat from overseas game investments, a trend that has also forced studios such [...]

Scottish Widows, the UK workplace‑pension provider owned by Lloyds Banking Group, is channeling members’ savings into a venture‑growth portfolio managed by IP Group. The first allocations will target Oxford Quantum Circuits and Quantum Motion, two quantum‑computing start‑ups, alongside battery firm Nyobolt and AI‑driven health‑tech company Genomics Limited. Aberdeen Investments appointed IP Group to run the portfolio within the CG Scottish Widows Growth long‑term asset fund, aiming to supply “follow‑on” capital for British firms ready to commercialise technology and scale. The [...]

OpenAI’s newest fundraising round has been trimmed from an earlier $30 billion target to $20 billion, according to the Financial Times. The round, led by investors from the United Arab Emirates, is expected to close at a figure lower than the revised target, with a retail tranche for high‑net‑worth individuals potentially filling the gap. The Wall Street Journal reports the company has secured $11 billion so far and encountered a “tepid” response from several large investors. Analysts link the softer [...]

Agility Robotics and Churchill Capital Corp XI announced that the planned SPAC merger will raise about $465 million, down from the $620 million previously projected at a $2.5 billion valuation. The capital package includes roughly $164 million from Churchill’s trust, a $201 million common‑stock PIPE at $10 per share led by Foxconn, and $100 million of equity already secured. The transaction is slated to close on Nov. 4, pending shareholder approval. Agility, which unveiled the Digit 5 humanoid with redesigned legs, optional wheels and fast‑charging batteries [...]

The Quantum Industry Coalition (QIC) sent a letter to Senate and House science committees urging passage of the National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act (NQIRA) as part of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. The coalition, whose members include Amazon Web Services, IBM, Microsoft and IonQ, asked lawmakers to raise funding authorizations, support quantum testbeds and technology centers, sustain grants for quantum hardware and software, and expand workforce programs. It also called for aligning research‑security rules and program [...]

South Korea is intensifying its push for a sovereign AI hardware ecosystem, leveraging domestic memory giants SK Hynix and Samsung and nearby fabs such as TSMC and Rapidus. Two home‑grown startups, Rebellions and FuriosaAI, have already shipped silicon—Rebellions’ Rebel100 matches Nvidia’s three‑year‑old H200, while Furiosa’s RNGD delivers 2.25 × the performance‑per‑watt of an older A100. This week Furiosa announced a $620 million Series D round to scale RNGD production to about 20,000 units this year and double output by 2027, with [...]

Wabi, an AI personal agent founded by former Replika creator Eugenia Kuyda, secured $55 million in a new funding round, valuing the company at $1.25 billion. The startup has pivoted from a prompt‑based app builder to a messenger that can create mini‑apps for tasks such as meal planning, restaurant discovery, fitness routines, and custom trivia games. Investors include IVP, Andreessen Horowitz, Amazon Alexa Fund, and high‑profile angels like Tobi Lütke and Marc Benioff, signaling confidence in Wabi’s agentic vision. [...]