Away from the megarounds, early-July capital is flowing to physical AI and vertical agents, with Chinese strategic capital highly active and nine-figure Series A/B rounds now routine.
Away from the billion-dollar headlines, the early-July funding tape shows capital concentrating in two places: AI that touches the physical world, and specialized systems aimed at high-stakes professional workflows.
On the hardware side, Even Realities Technology raised $150 million in Pre-Series B funding led by Meituan and Tencent for its camera-free smart glasses built on proprietary waveguide optics. Tripo AI added roughly $147–150 million in a Series A extension for its 3D generation platform. In robotics, Zeroth raised approximately $73.6 million in a Series A led by Ant Group for humanoid systems, and Yingzhi XBOT closed $56 million in Series B funding.
On the software side, TwelveLabs raised a $100 million Series B co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with Amazon participating and an AWS Trainium training commitment attached, for its video-understanding foundation models, while LinqAlpha raised $22 million in Series A funding for agentic AI in market intelligence, part of a steady stream of rounds backing agents for regulated, decision-heavy domains.
Two patterns are worth flagging. First, Chinese strategic capital, Meituan, Tencent, Ant, is highly active in physical AI and consumer hardware, a segment where US venture attention has been comparatively thin. Second, Series A and B rounds in these categories now routinely reach nine figures, importing megaround dynamics into stages where they compress the normal diligence cycle.
My View on This
physical AI is where the next platform-scale outcomes are being seeded, but capital intensity is brutal and reference-customer traction remains scarce. The discipline for growth investors is separating funded science projects from businesses with a credible path to unit economics inside five years.
Sources
Filed under AI Advisory. Working session: Calendly.
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