Physical AI draws $47.4B in H1

Physical-AI companies pulled in $47.4 billion across 521 venture deals in the first half of 2026, nearly four times the $12 billion raised in the second half of 2025. Crunchbase’s funding tally also puts H1 2026 above the $41.9 billion invested across the entire 2022–2024 period, with Waymo’s $16 billion round alone accounting for nearly one-third of the half-year total. For builders, the signal is not that every robot startup is fundable; it is that investors are moving capital toward systems that own hardware, sensors, deployment data, and recurring operational outcomes—the same stack logic behind Pony.ai and Uber’s 2,000-vehicle trial.