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The Signal

On August 26, the Army put up to $2.2B behind five companies to build nuclear microreactors on five bases. The same day, the White House declared a national emergency and banned foreign-made equipment from the bulk power grid. The day before, Canada announced it would double its tariff on American steel and aluminum to 50%, effective September 8. All three landed within 48 hours of each other, and none of them were coordinated. We don’t think any of it is priced into anyone’s supply plan yet.

The Army and the Defense Innovation Unit awarded up to $2.2B across five vendors at five bases through Project Janus, naming Antares Nuclear at Fort Bragg, BWXT Advanced Technologies at Fort Campbell, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems at Fort Hood, Radiant Industries at Fort Benning, and Westinghouse Government Services at Fort Drum. It’s an Other Transaction Authority contract with fixed-price milestones over five years, and vendors get paid only when they hit technical gates. The $2.2B is a ceiling on what the Army could pay across all five companies, not a guaranteed sum. The Army’s target is one reactor operational on a base by September 2028, and with private capital layered in, officials are aiming for more than 20 microreactors across the program over time.

The grid equipment order followed the same day, restricting foreign-made transformers, inverters, circuit breakers, and battery storage from entering US substations and control rooms, and giving the Energy Secretary authority to force removal of equipment already installed. To give you a sense of scale, more than 80% of the large power transformers operating in the US are foreign-made, and China alone has supplied over 200 of them in the past decade, out of a global manufacturing base it controls at 60%. Battery storage carries the same exposure in a different form. China produces more than 80% of the world’s battery cells, and even storage systems assembled domestically frequently run on Chinese-made cells inside them. None of that is enforceable yet. The Department of Energy has 120 days to write the implementing rules, which pushes actual enforcement to roughly late December.

Canada’s move gets less attention because it runs the opposite direction. The US imposed a 50% tariff on roughly $20B of Canadian goods on August 22, and Canada retaliated by doubling its own tariff on American steel and aluminum to 50%, effective September 8, alongside new duties on close to 700 other US products. It’s a separate fight, aimed at exports rather than imports, but it lands on the same producers Washington is counting on to scale up. Whether that changes their appetite to invest in new domestic capacity is the open question, not something this week’s numbers answer.

Washington bought microreactors on August 26. The same day, it blocked foreign competitors from selling grid equipment into the country. And a separate trade fight with Canada is now squeezing the same domestic steel and aluminum producers Washington is counting on to scale up, though from the export side rather than the input side. The microreactor award assumes a domestic supply chain that scales on schedule. The grid equipment order assumes that same supply chain can absorb the demand once met by the banned foreign vendors. Whether a producer losing a major export channel is more or less likely to invest in the specialty capacity both of those assumptions require is the open question. We haven’t seen an underwriting model yet that holds all three variables at once.

Moving Parts

Trump Declares a Grid Emergency and Moves to Block Foreign-Made Power Equipment

The executive order signed Wednesday sets up prohibitions on connecting certain foreign-produced transformers, inverters, batteries and their digital controls to the bulk power system. The security argument is real, but the binding one is industrial: the US does not make enough large power transformers, and lead times already run years. Every gigawatt of new industrial and data center load now depends on a domestic supply chain that has to be rebuilt before it can be protected.

The Army Puts $2.2B Behind Five Microreactor Vendors and Names the Bases

Project Janus pairs Antares, BWXT, General Atomics, Radiant and Westinghouse with Forts Bragg, Campbell, Hood, Benning and Drum. This is the first order book advanced nuclear has had that is tied to specific sites and dates rather than to studies. Defense is doing for microreactors what it did for launch: underwriting the first units so the second wave can be sold commercially, and the obvious second buyer is anyone siting load faster than the grid can serve it.

Canada Puts 50% Counter-Tariffs on C$27.6B of US Goods, Effective September 8

The list runs across roughly 600 product classifications: steel and aluminum, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, furniture. Talks collapsed, so the cost is now scheduled rather than threatened, and manufacturers have a dated deadline to reroute or eat it. The integrated North American factory floor is being priced apart one HS code at a time, and the companies that mapped their tariff exposure to the part level are the only ones who can respond in ten days.

Anthropic Publishes a Standard for Letting AI Agents Operate Physical Machines

The Model Hardware Standard is a research preview of a shared specification for how agents connect to lab instruments and factory equipment, with permissions and safety constraints built into the interface. The hard problem in physical AI was never the model, it was the contract between software that reasons and machinery that can hurt someone. We argued in Physical AI, The Next Frontier that the value accrues at that interface, and it is now being written as a protocol rather than sold as a product.

Amazon’s Project Tetromino Aims at Fully Automated Delivery Stations

An internal planning document describes automating the last facility a package passes through before it hits a van, the one part of the network that stayed stubbornly manual. Fulfillment centers were the easy robotics problem because volumes are predictable; delivery stations are chaotic, high-mix and labor-intensive, which is exactly why the savings are larger. Read it alongside Amazon’s new Austin robotics plant and the pattern is a company building the machines, the sites and the routes as one system.

Capital At Work

TerraBlaster Raises $12.5M Seed to Read Soil Nutrients at Tractor Speed

Ulu Ventures led, with Khosla Ventures, Trailhead Capital and Builders Vision joining, for laser spectroscopy first flown on the Mars rover and now bolted to a tractor. Fertilizer is the largest controllable input cost in row crop farming and it is still allocated off grid samples taken every 2.5 acres. Measurement density, not new chemistry, is where the margin is.

SiFly Raises $20M Series A to Scale US Production of Long-Endurance Drones

Shield Capital led the round behind the Q12, an electric aircraft built to stay up far longer than a standard quadcopter, with production onshore. Demand for drones is no longer the question; domestic airframe and motor capacity is, and Chinese supply is being legislated out of the US market faster than replacements are being tooled up. Capital going into production lines rather than flight software is the right read.

Cyclic Materials Lands $75M to Build Out US Rare Earth Recycling

T. Rowe Price led again, bringing total equity to $237M, with a South Carolina recycling campus breaking ground in Q4. Recycled feedstock is the only rare earth supply the US can add without a decade of permitting, because the magnets are already inside the motors and drives sitting in the country. The constraint is collection logistics, which is a supply chain problem dressed as a chemistry one.

Ursa Major Goes Public in a $2.3B SPAC Merger

The rocket propulsion company, now building solid rocket motors and hypersonic systems, is taking a blank-check route at a $1.6B pre-money valuation with close expected in Q1 2027. Solid rocket motors are a national capacity shortage with a two-supplier market, and public currency buys factories faster than another private round would. Second hypersonics-adjacent listing in a month, which is a market forming, not a coincidence.

Bought Not Built

Siemens Energy Spins Out Its €5.7B Industrial Division as Omterra

The Transformation of Industry unit, 17,000 employees and roughly €5.7B of revenue at an 11.3% margin, becomes a standalone company so Siemens Energy can put its capital behind turbines and grid equipment instead. Everything the parent keeps serves electricity demand; everything it sheds serves industrial decarbonization, and reports have private equity circling the carve-out at €8–10B. The cleanest signal yet of where industrial capital thinks the returns are for the next decade.

Mubadala Capital Buys Control of Arrive Logistics

The Austin freight brokerage sold a majority stake to Mubadala’s alternative asset arm and says it will hire 1,000 people and push into cross-border, LTL and produce freight. Terms were not disclosed. Sovereign capital is buying the brokerage layer at the exact moment AI is supposed to compress it, which is a bet that the network and the carrier relationships outlast the pricing tools sitting on top of them.

Descartes Buys Freight Broker Software Vendor Tai for $100M

Cash on hand, no drama, and Descartes adds a transportation management system aimed at small and mid-sized brokers to a network it already owns. Brokerages are consolidating under margin pressure and the survivors will run on someone else’s software; Descartes would rather that software be theirs and feed its data network. Owning the workflow beats selling into it.

From The Portfolio

Gatik Raises $200M Series D Led by QIA and Koch Disruptive Technologies

Gatik, the Santa Clara-based autonomous trucking company, raised $200M in its largest financing to date, with Millennium Management, ARK Invest and Intact Private Capital joining and total funding now near $500M since it left stealth in 2019. Gatik runs driverless box trucks on the short, repeated middle-mile routes that move goods between distribution centers and stores for Fortune 50 retail, grocery and CPG customers, following its PepsiCo deal earlier this year. The round funds a fleet expansion past 100 driverless trucks, and it prices the boring version of autonomy, fixed routes with real freight contracts, above the demo version.

Lux Aeterna Takes Its Reusable Satellite Pitch to the Pentagon

Lux Aeterna is pitching the Space Force on spacecraft that come home: deploy a satellite for a crisis, recover it, refurbish it, fly it again. New defense lead Brian Bone frames it as the missing middle between disposable proliferated constellations and expensive on-orbit servicing, and as a reason operators could stop rationing propellant. Delphi-1, a roughly 200kg vehicle carrying 30kg of payload, flies on SpaceX’s Transporter-19 in early 2027.

On The Dynamo Show

Gigawatt Campuses vs. Edge Zones: The Future of AI Infrastructure

Madelyn O’Farrell sits down with Eesha Pathak, Senior Director of Product Management at Crusoe, on what it takes to turn energy into compute. Her argument is that the winning AI infrastructure is vertically integrated and energy-first: capture power where it is stranded or abundant, then build the cloud stack on top of it. She makes the case that gigawatt-scale campuses and modular edge deployments are complements rather than competitors, one for training scale and one for low-latency inference.

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

Senior Mission Operations Manager at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO

Founding Forward Deployed Engineer at Bonx in Paris

Senior Site Delivery & Infrastructure Manager at Manna in Tulsa, OK

Founding Mechanical Engineer at Kinth in San Francisco, CA

Senior Manager, Truck Assets & Operations at Gatik in Santa Clara, CA

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The Signal

Chips were never the hard constraint in the US. Fabs scale in a few years, GPU allocation reshuffles by the quarter. Permits, transmission, and skilled labor move slower, and four events this week show that’s the clock everyone is actually building against.

Pennsylvania moved first. Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order pulling every existing data center project out of the state’s Fast Track permitting program. Old rule: apply and get fast-tracked. New rule: only projects above 25MW that commit to new power generation, not the existing grid, qualify for fast review — everyone else waits in line like anyone else.

That’s the same math behind Equinor’s move days earlier. The Norwegian major agreed to pay $940M, subject to a closing adjustment, for an 87.71% stake in Lackawanna Energy Center, a 1,483MW gas-fired plant in Pennsylvania’s PJM market, from BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners. Invenergy stays on as operator. Equinor gets dispatchable capacity next to gas reserves it already owns in Appalachia, without permitting or building anything new. Buying a running plant beat permitting one.

On the construction side, Turner’s prefab arm xPL Offsite delivered a hot-aisle containment system for a 30MW rapid-deployment data center. First module fabricated in three weeks. Full install in two months. That timeline only works off-site. On-site, there aren’t enough electricians and pipefitters to hit it.

That labor gap is finally narrowing, on a lag. Associated Builders and Contractors reported this week that merit shop apprenticeship enrollment is up roughly 60% since 2020, nearly triple the growth rate of union programs.

A state government, an oil major, a general contractor, and a trade association all hit the same wall this week. Compute demand is rate-limited by physical infrastructure and the labor to install it, not chip supply.

Moving Parts

Pennsylvania Tells Data Centers to Bring Their Own Power

Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order this week that fast-tracks permitting for data centers that show up with their own generation and slows down the ones that do not. Power procurement just moved from a utility problem to a siting requirement, and PJM is pushing the same way inside the largest constrained market in the country. Behind-the-meter generation is becoming the default design assumption for new industrial load, which pulls turbines, fuel cells, and interconnection engineering into the critical path of every compute buildout.

Panama Canal Starts Cutting Daily Transits as El Niño Deepens

The Panama Canal Authority is now capping the number of ships it moves each day, after spending the year cutting draft limits instead. We said last week that transit counts were untouched. That changed in seven days, and the auction system will favor containerships carrying more loaded TEU, which prices smaller shippers out first. Water level is a physical constraint that no rate index publishes and no contract hedges.

Unitree Pops 629% in Its Shanghai Debut

The humanoid maker raised roughly $905M and closed its first day near a $66B valuation. China already ships the overwhelming majority of the world’s humanoids, and now the volume leader has public equity to fund capacity with. Western robotics teams are not competing against a hardware startup anymore, they are competing against a listed manufacturer whose cost of capital just collapsed.

Amazon Takes Prime Air Sixfold as the Drone Layer Gets Real

Amazon is extending drone delivery into metro Atlanta, Chicago and Cleveland on its way to roughly 500 cities, and Uber signed Zipline to fly Eats orders the same week. Drone delivery has stopped being a pilot line item and started behaving like a network layer that retailers rent. The bottleneck moves next to airspace approvals, launch-site real estate and the ground operations nobody demos.

Merit Shop Apprenticeship Enrollment Is Up 60% and Outgrowing the Unions

An ABC analysis of Department of Labor data shows nonunion programs drove almost all growth in registered construction apprenticeships over five years. The trades pipeline is finally responding to price, just not through the institutions most policy assumes will carry it. We wrote about why demand is outrunning supply in The Demand Side of the Trades Crisis and how the pipeline broke in How We Broke the Trades Pipeline, and this is the first honest sign of the supply side moving.

Capital At Work

Takt Raises $9.25M Series A to Run Warehouse Labor Off Live Data

Ballast Point Partners led the first institutional round for a platform that pulls labor, robot and conveyor performance into one operating picture. Warehouses bought automation faster than they bought the ability to manage people and machines against the same order plan. The measurement layer is where the next decade of fulfillment margin gets found.

SoftBank Puts $200M Into Gravis Robotics for Autonomous Construction

The ETH Zurich spinout automates excavators and heavy earthmoving equipment rather than building new machines. Retrofitting the installed fleet is the only version of construction autonomy that reaches scale this decade, because contractors will not replace $500K assets to buy software. Capital is finally underwriting the boring path.

Castelion Raises $1B Series C to Mass Produce Hypersonic Weapons

The round funds production of the Blackbeard missile at the company’s New Mexico site rather than another development program. Defense buyers are paying for manufactured units on a schedule, and investors are pricing factories, not prototypes. The lesson generalizes past defense: in the physical economy, the round that matters is the one that buys capacity.

FORT Robotics Goes Public in a $557M SPAC Merger

The safety and control layer for autonomous machines is merging with Newbury Street II Acquisition Corp, creating the first public company built specifically around making physical AI safe to deploy. Safety certification is the gate every robotics deployment has to pass, and it has been sold as a component rather than a platform. Public currency here is a bet that the trust layer gets priced separately from the robots.

Bought Not Built

Madison Air Buys Germany’s ebm-papst for $5.4B

The Big Ass Fans owner is paying $5.4B for a fan and motor maker whose parts sit inside data center cooling, semiconductor tools and medical equipment. Air movement is the unglamorous chokepoint under every thermal-constrained buildout, and Madison bought the component position rather than trying to engineer it. Expect more strategics to buy their way into the parts of the stack that limit their customers’ throughput.

Equinor Takes Majority of a 1.48GW Pennsylvania Gas Plant for $940M

The Norwegian major is buying dispatchable generation inside PJM in the same week Pennsylvania told data centers to source their own power. Firm megawatts next to load are the scarce asset, and oil majors are rotating into them faster than utilities can build. Whoever owns generation inside a constrained interconnection queue owns the option on the compute buildout.

GrubMarket Buys UK Produce Distributor JR Holland

GrubMarket keeps buying regional food distributors and porting them onto its own software, this time crossing into the UK. The strategy treats acquisition as customer acquisition for a technology stack, which is how software finally reaches fragmented perishables supply chains. Buying the distribution beats selling to it.

From The Portfolio

Unit AI’s CEO on Why the Warehouse Automation Model Is Broken

Guy Glass and Avi Barkay argue that roughly 80% of warehouses are locked out of direct-to-consumer automation because traditional systems demand millions in capex, facility construction and years before payback. Their case is that physical AI changes the shape of the investment, not just the performance. Worth reading if you operate anything smaller than a flagship site.

Plus One Robotics’ CTO on Why Humanoids Will Not Scale Yet

Shaun Edwards makes the unfashionable argument that the barrier to humanoids on factory floors is unit economics, not intelligence. The technology mostly works; the price per deployed hour does not clear against the labor it replaces. A useful counterweight to a week where the humanoid trade got a public listing.

On The Dynamo Show

Drew Kerr, VP and General Manager of xPL Offsite at Turner Construction, walks Madelyn O’Farrell through what it took to stand up a 30MW data center on an emergency timeline. His argument: construction gets faster only when manufacturing, supply chain and field installation sit under one roof, and modularization becomes the default way we build.

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

Head of Structures at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO

Head of Manufacturing at Gatik in Santa Clara, CA

Founding Mechanical Engineer at Kinth in San Francisco, CA

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The Signal

The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed to routine shipping since late February, when US and Israeli strikes on Iran triggered retaliation against commercial vessels. Five months later, transits remain a fraction of normal. Roughly a quarter of the world’s seaborne crude and petroleum moves through that gap.

A different war is closing the Black Sea just as effectively. Russian strikes on Odesa and other Ukrainian ports intensified through July and August, and Time reported last month that close to 90% of shipowners have suspended port calls rather than absorb the insurance risk. Ukraine’s acting foreign minister called it an attempt to turn the Black Sea into a second Hormuz.

Hormuz and the Black Sea are closing because of conflict, while Panama and the Rhine’s closings have nothing to do with war. Water is closing them instead. The Panama Canal Authority cut Neopanamax draft limits for the fourth and fifth time this year, dropping to 48.0 feet on August 26 and 47.5 feet on September 3, as a strengthening El Niño drains Gatun Lake. Transit counts are untouched. Cargo loads are not.

The same freshwater math is playing out on the other side of the Atlantic. The Rhine hit its lowest level at the Kaub gauge since records began in 1880, Bloomberg reported August 11. Evonik said this week it’s shifting part of its freight to rail and road to work around it. Thyssenkrupp and BASF are absorbing the same disruption further down the river.

None of these four show up on a rate sheet, and none of them announce themselves before they hit. That’s the case for point-level visibility over rate visibility.

The above is happening in tandem with the wind down of SeaRates, DP World’s visibility platform, according to operators we’ve spoken with. Portfolio company Vizion opened a transition track for exactly that gap. It matches a customer’s existing commercial terms, gets technical teams into the API quickly to validate live data, and provides migration support through go-live. For those trying to AI-pill their logistics operations, this is critical data to deliver quality outcomes.

Moving Parts

Nvidia Turns GPUs Into Collateral in a $500B Financing Push

Nvidia signed MOUs with Apollo, Blackstone, BlackRock, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to mobilize more than $500B of third-party capital for customers buying its hardware, and agreed to cover up to 25% of any shortfall if chips pledged as collateral lose value faster than expected. That guarantee is the whole story: it converts depreciating semiconductors into an asset class lenders will underwrite like toll roads, and it parks the residual risk on Nvidia rather than the buyer, making it supplier, guarantor and demand backstop at once. The uncomfortable version is that pension and insurance capital is now funding assets whose resale value nobody has priced through a downturn. Every capital-intensive founder should study the structure anyway, because residual-value guarantees are how robots, batteries and autonomous fleets eventually get financed too.

White House Says Transshipment Costs $19-26B a Year in Lost Tariffs

A White House report released Thursday, The Great Transshipment Scam, estimates the US loses $19B to $26B a year to goods routed through third countries to dodge tariffs. It argues China has moved goods through Mexico, Malaysia and others since 2018, packaging or lightly assembling them so the paperwork shows a different origin. That made the post-2018 drop in Chinese imports look larger than it was. Enforcement is already using AI to trace true origin. Country-of-origin proof stops being a customs formality and becomes a supply chain data problem.

100% Tariffs Land on Heavy Drones and Every Part That Goes Into Them

The proclamation puts 100% tariffs on drones with thermal cameras, drones over 25kg, and any component for any unmanned aircraft over 25kg, with lower rates below that line. The component clause is what bites: US operators and integrators pay it even on airframes already cleared for American use. Domestic manufacturers get a price umbrella and roughly eighteen months to prove they can build underneath it at volume.

Pentagon Signs Over $2B in Deals Securing Batteries and Critical Minerals

The DoD’s Office of Strategic Capital committed more than $2B to Sila Technologies, Sunrise Energy Metals and Niron Magnetics across anodes, nickel and rare-earth-free magnets. This is industrial policy executed as a balance sheet rather than a grant program: the government is taking midstream positions private capital will not underwrite at these payback periods. Founders in materials should be reading OSC term sheets as carefully as they read venture ones.

AgiBot Passes Unitree as China Takes 97% of Humanoid Shipments

AgiBot shipped 8,400 humanoids in H1, 44% of the global market and more than Unitree managed in all of 2025, while Chinese makers accounted for 97% of global shipments. The consensus is that American and European labs still lead on the software; the problem is that hardware volume is what generates the field data those models eventually need. Whoever ships the bodies gets the reps.

Capital At Work

TetraGen Robotics Raises $1.8M Seed to Automate Welding

The Winnipeg company closed an oversubscribed seed led by StepChange Capital to commercialize autonomous welding for job-shop work. Two weeks after HII put up to $900M behind robotic welding at naval scale, seed capital is arriving at the small-batch end of the same problem. The fabricators who cannot hire welders are a larger market than the primes who can.

ClearJet Raises $25M Series B to Build the Uber of Cargo

Edison Partners led the round for the Austin startup, which sells unused belly and trailer capacity rather than owning any of it. Air cargo yield management still runs on phone calls and spreadsheets, so the margin sits in the matching layer. Asset-light brokerage keeps working in freight because the assets keep being underutilized.

Form Energy Raises $750M Series G for 100-Hour Iron-Air Batteries

The money expands the West Virginia plant that makes multi-day storage out of iron and air rather than lithium. Data center load is what finally made duration bankable, because an operator who needs firm power cannot buy a four-hour battery. Long-duration storage stopped being a decarbonization story and became a compute story.

Bought Not Built

Hanwha Bids Up to $1.2B for Austal USA

The Korean defense group made a preliminary, non-binding offer for one of the largest US naval shipbuilders, and Austal’s board has opened the books for diligence. Washington wants hulls faster than the domestic base can build them, and the same week the White House opened the door to foreign-built warships. Buying an American yard is the faster path to that work than winning it from outside.

AEVEX Buys BlackSea Technologies for $650M

AEVEX is paying roughly $250M cash, $350M in stock, and another $50M in earn-out for a Baltimore builder of unmanned surface vessels running at about 40 boats a month with $150M of expected revenue. The buyer gets production capacity and existing Navy contracts, neither of which it could stand up in a year. Defense tech consolidation is now about factories and contract vehicles, not algorithms.

Xylem Buys Cornell Pump and Roper Pump for $1.46B

The water technology giant is buying specialized pumping equipment used in construction, mining and municipal work from Indicor. Data centers, mines and reshored plants all need water moved, and the engineered-pump installed base is the annuity underneath that demand. Boring hardware with a service tail keeps repricing upward across industrials.

From The Portfolio

Plus One Robotics Calls The FCC’s Robot Import Ban A Nearshoring Play

Founder and CEO Erik Nieves told Manufacturing Dive that the FCC’s sweeping block on foreign-built robots functions as a nearshoring tactic rather than a China-only measure. Country of origin now prices into a robot the way payback period does, and it lands on integrators who buy subassemblies far upstream of the badge on the arm. Suppliers already building in North America inherit a story their competitors cannot stand up in a year.

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

Head of Embodied AI, Data Foundry at Stord in Atlanta, GA / Remote US

Senior Site Delivery & Infrastructure Manager at Manna in Tulsa, OK

Founding Mechanical Engineer at Kinth in San Francisco, CA

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The Signal

HII, the US Navy’s largest shipbuilder, signed multi-year production agreements with two robotics startups this week, Path Robotics and GrayMatter Robotics, that could pay out up to $900M over seven years. The deal splits into a development phase and a production phase, and the ceiling only gets reached if the companies’ AI-powered welding, coating, and inspection systems hit manufacturing readiness milestones along the way. HII structured a purchase order with a qualification gate built into it, not a check to fund research.

This isn’t confined to shipbuilding. UPS already placed the same bet, and the results are in. Over two-thirds of its US parcel volume now moves through automated facilities, with 24 more automated buildings coming online in 2026 on top of the 127 already running. UPS committed real capital to automation over the last 15 years, and the payoff is a network where automation runs the majority of daily volume rather than a corner of it. It’s worth noting in the current growth obsessed venture market that scaling a durable business in the physical economy takes time, this is proof.

Two different buyers both with real interest and understanding of deploying capex to scale Physical AI on production terms, not pilot terms. A working demo can help validate value, refine the approach, and inform implementation. Now the real test is whether a buyer with a real balance sheet will sign a multi-year agreement, a test of not just technology but trust and the ability to endure some of the most challenging procurement cycles across the physical economy.

- Santosh, Madelyn, Jon, and the Dynamo team

Moving Parts

HII Signs $900M Agreement with Path Robotics and GrayMatter Robotics

America’s largest military shipbuilder committed up to $900M to two robotics startups to weld and finish naval hulls. The agreements pay for output rather than software seats, which is the structure that finally clears defense procurement. Robotics companies that price like contract manufacturers will win the industrial base.

China’s New Export Engine Is the Machinery That Builds Factories

China’s export mix is shifting from finished goods toward machine tools, industrial robots and production lines. Tariffs on widgets do nothing when the equipment making widgets in Mexico, Vietnam and Ohio is Chinese. Capital goods are the real chokepoint in this decade’s trade fight.

UPS Now Moves Over Two Thirds of US Volume Through Automated Locations

UPS crossed the point where automation, not parcel volume, sets its cost curve. The company is closing buildings and consolidating flow into fewer, denser automated hubs. Parcel incumbents are becoming automation operators that happen to own trucks.

Labor Shortage Chokes the AI Data Center Buildout

Electricians, pipefitters and millwrights, not chips or capital, are now the binding constraint on data center construction. We wrote about this in The Demand Side of the Trades Crisis: three demand curves, reshoring, the AI buildout and grid replacement, are pulling from one depleted labor pool while the average welder turns 55. How We Broke the Trades Pipeline covers why the supply side cannot respond quickly, and until it does, every compute forecast is really a trades forecast.

US Bans Exports of Recycled Battery Metals and Tungsten

Black mass, scrap cobalt, nickel and tungsten can no longer leave the country. Recyclers lose their highest bidder overseas, which drops domestic feedstock prices and makes US refining pencil out for the first time in years. Trade policy just handed the domestic midstream a subsidy without spending a dollar.

Capital At Work

Keiron Raises €20.7M Series A to Fix Solder Paste Printing

The Dutch startup replaces stencil printing with a laser-based deposition process for circuit board assembly. Roughly 70% of board defects trace back to this one step, so yield gains compound across every downstream cost line. Electronics assembly, not chip design, is where Western manufacturers lose their margin.

HappyRobot Raises $150M Series C at a $1.2B Valuation

Voice agents that work carrier check calls produced freight tech’s newest unicorn in under three years. Brokerage back offices are the fastest repricing labor line in logistics, and buyers are paying per load rather than per license. The valuation is a bet that agents absorb the function entirely.

Hadrian Raises $1.37B Series D at a $7.87B Valuation

Defense and space demand is now funding factories at infrastructure scale rather than startup scale. Hadrian is buying precision machining capacity ahead of the primes that need it. The scarce asset in the industrial base is not engineering talent, it is available spindle hours.

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Bought Not Built

Prologis Moves Forward with its $18.8B Takeover Of Segro

The largest industrial landlord in the world is absorbing its biggest European competitor. Warehouse capacity across two continents starts pricing off a single counterparty. Shippers negotiating renewals in 2027 will feel this before regulators finish reviewing it.

Federated Mutual Acquires Trucking Insurtech HDVI

A traditional mutual carrier bought the telematics-priced fleet insurance platform instead of building one. HDVI’s underwriting data and safety program are what Federated could not assemble internally at speed. Insurtech distribution keeps ending up inside balance sheets that already have capital.

From The Portfolio

Manna’s CEO On Tulsa Being The US Beachhead For Drone Delivery

Manna, the drone delivery company, laid out why it picked Tulsa for its first US hub. Airspace access, municipal partnership and suburban density matter more than population size when unit economics depend on flights per hour per drone. The company is all-in on its US ramp to make delivery by drone ubiquitous. Also listen to Bobby on the latest episode of The Dynamo Show.

Unit AI Sells Warehouse Capacity, Not Robots

Unit AI, the fulfillment automation startup, made the case on The New Warehouse for pricing robotics as throughput rather than hardware. Operators add capacity in increments and pay for units moved instead of committing capital to a fixed build. This is the commercial model that gets automation past the crucial procurement and budgetary approval process.

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

Head, Manufacturing at Gatik in Santa Clara, CA

Senior Mechanical Design Engineer at Manna in Dublin, Ireland

Chief of Staff at Freight Hero in Durham, NC

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🎙 The Dynamo Show goes deep with The New Industrialists rejuvenating industry and commerce.

The Signal

Washington strengthened its role as gatekeeper of physical economy this week, working through three separate levers in the span of five days. On July 30, Trump invoked the Defense Production Act, delegating authority to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to restrict exports of recoverable critical minerals: black mass, end-of-life rare-earth magnets, swarf, and other scrap containing materials the Pentagon deems essential. It’s the third escalation since January, following a Section 232 proclamation on inbound mineral imports and a July 20 order closing defense-procurement waiver loopholes. The US currently exports roughly 33,000 metric tons of e-waste a month, much of it recoverable critical minerals headed overseas for processing.

Two days earlier, the FCC added foreign-made advanced robotic devices (autonomous mobile robots, humanoid robots, and quadrupeds over 4.4 lbs) and connected power inverters to its Covered List, citing the risk that networked sensors could expose critical infrastructure or be remotely hijacked. New models from listed manufacturers can no longer receive FCC equipment authorization, a market lockout for future products, though it doesn’t touch machines already deployed.

Then there’s the Pentagon’s January 1, 2027 ban on Chinese-sourced rare-earth magnets, tantalum, and tungsten in defense supply chains, a deadline suppliers are openly telling Washington they can’t meet. US demand for neodymium-iron-boron magnets runs about 48,000 metric tons a year; domestic supply was 300 metric tons in 2025 and is on pace to reach only about 5,000 by early 2026. That gap is over 40,000 tons wide heading into a hard compliance date.

None of these three actions moved a price. They moved authority: who is allowed to sell into the US, and who is allowed to sell out of it. For any company with a supply chain that touches China, that is now the constraint to underwrite around. We’re looking for the founders building the domestic capacity to close these gaps — reach out if that’s you.

-Santosh, Madelyn, Jon, and Team Dynamo

Moving Parts

Lazard’s 2026 LCOE+ Resets The Cost Curve For Firm Power

Lazard’s annual levelized cost analysis is the reference document that governs how data centers, factories and utilities get sited and financed. This year’s edition lands in the middle of a five-year gas turbine backlog and a grid interconnection queue measured in gigawatts of unmet demand. Read it as the arbiter of which technologies actually clear on cost once firming, storage and delay are priced in, not just which ones look cheapest per megawatt hour.

Zoox Wins The First US Approval For Paid Driverless Robotaxi Service

Amazon’s Zoox cleared regulatory approval to charge passengers for fully driverless rides, the first company to do so in the United States. The vehicles matter less than the paperwork. A working template for commercial driverless authorization is precisely what autonomous freight has been waiting on, and the precedent set in passenger miles gets cited in every trucking application that follows.

FedEx Moves Closer To Robots That Load Trailers

FedEx is advancing toward production deployment of robotic trailer loading, the last stubbornly manual step in parcel handling. Loading is where the physics get ugly: mixed parcels, unstable stacks, tight enclosures and brutal turnover in the labor that does it today. Solve it and the cost curve of the entire parcel network moves, which is why every hub operator in the country is watching this and not the humanoid demos.

Amazon Returns Part Of A $600M Tariff Refund To Shoppers

Amazon is passing a portion of a $600M tariff refund back to consumers, an unusual reversal in a year where duties have flowed one direction. It is a reminder that tariff exposure is now a working capital line, not a policy footnote: money paid at the border comes back years later, if it comes back, and whoever holds the customs entry holds the claim. Sellers and platforms that cannot document their entries will never see their share.

US Suppliers Are Not Ready For The Pentagon’s 2027 Magnet Ban

Defense suppliers have eighteen months to strip China-sourced magnets and rare earths out of their bills of materials, and the domestic capacity to replace them does not exist yet. Qualification cycles for magnet materials run years, not quarters, so the gap gets closed by redesign or by waiver. Every hardware company selling into defense is now running a materials audit it did not budget for, and the winners will be the ones who already know where their neodymium comes from.

Capital At Work

Terminal Raises $20M Series A To Scale Telematics Integration

Terminal sells a single API into the fragmented world of fleet telematics, serving insurers, fleet managers and logistics operators. Fleet data plumbing is being funded as infrastructure rather than as a feature, because underwriting and automation both stall without it. The bet is that the integration layer outlives whichever telematics hardware wins.

Freehand Raises $75M Series B To Automate Fortune 500 Supply Chain Spend

Battery Ventures, NewRoad and Nexus backed Freehand to put AI agents in charge of enterprise supply chain spend management. Procurement is the first budget line large enterprises are willing to let agents actually touch, because the workflow is rule-bound and the savings are measurable. Agents moving from drafting documents to disbursing money is the real threshold here.

Antora Raises $550M Series C For Heat Batteries

Antora stores energy as heat to run industrial processes and data center loads, and just closed one of the largest cleantech rounds of the year. Industrial heat is roughly a quarter of global energy demand and almost none of it has an electrification path that works today. The biggest decarbonization dollars are moving toward thermal, not toward more electrons.

Bought Not Built

Procore Acquires DroneDeploy For $845M

Procore is bolting reality capture and site data onto the construction industry’s system of record. Construction software has always known what was supposed to happen on site; DroneDeploy knows what actually did. Owning both sides of that gap is what makes progress billing, claims and scheduling defensible rather than advisory.

Symbotic Acquires ARMS Innovations

Symbotic bought the maintenance and reliability layer that keeps warehouse automation running at contracted uptime. Selling automation as an outcome means owning the failure modes, and predictive maintenance is where fulfillment guarantees are actually won or lost. The nervous system matters more than the muscle once the robots are installed.

American Industrial Partners Closes Its Honeywell Warehouse Deal And Combines Intelligrated, Transnorm And Trew

AIP completed its purchase of Honeywell’s warehouse and workflow solutions business and immediately merged it with Transnorm and Trew into a single materials handling provider. Private equity is assembling a full-stack challenger to Daifuku and Dematic out of assets a conglomerate had stopped investing in. Consolidation in automation integration is now being led by financial buyers, not strategics.

From The Portfolio

Freight Hero Raises $5M Seed To Run Freight Brokers’ Back Office

Freight Hero raised a $5M seed round led by Field Ventures with Flybridge Capital, Tip Top VC and Front Porch Venture Partners participating. The company pairs AI agents with human operators to run brokerage back-office work end to end, selling brokers an outcome rather than another tool to staff.

UNIT AI Raises $12M To Modularize Warehouse Automation

UNIT AI raised $12M from Prologis Ventures, Dynamo Ventures, Ground Up Ventures, with eGateway Capital, Recursive Ventures, Think + Ventures, ZEP Fund, and Crosscourt also participating. The company builds modular robotic cells for eCommerce fulfillment and returns, letting operators add capacity in increments instead of committing to a fixed, single-vendor warehouse build.

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

Chief of Staff at Freight Hero in Durham, NC

Senior Site Delivery and Infrastructure Manager at Manna in Tulsa, OK

Senior Mission Operations Manager at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO

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🎙 The Dynamo Show goes deep with The New Industrialists rejuvenating industry and commerce.

The Signal

Three raises landed in one week that all are underpinned by the notion that the physical economy is where the next wave of AI gets built:

• Atoms, Travis Kalanick’s industrial robotics platform, closed $1.7B led by a16z

• Arrakis, an AI deployment layer for aerospace, energy, and logistics operators, came out of stealth with $38M

• 1872 raised $15M to build an autonomous steel fabrication factory in Cincinnati

Add to the above that global robotics funding hit $55.8B through early June this year, nearly double the prior full-year record.

That bet is being placed at the exact moment the trade architecture underneath it is being rebuilt from scratch. This week the administration imposed Section 301 tariffs of 10-12.5% on 60 economies over forced labor enforcement. Days earlier it invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 against Canada, a 50% tariff under a statute that hasn’t actually been used to impose duties since before World War II. Both moves trace back to February, when the Supreme Court struck down tariff authority under IEEPA, forcing the administration to go statute-hunting for replacements. Meanwhile Hapag-Lloyd is layering a Panama Canal surcharge onto Far East-to-North America sailings starting August 15, and Sea-Intelligence now calls blank sailings a structural feature of container shipping, not a cyclical one, with carriers routinely pulling 10-14% of scheduled capacity.

Automating a factory only pays off if the inputs and outputs can move predictably. Right now the legal mechanism for tariffs is being reinvented in real time and ocean capacity has become permanently unreliable by design. Founders building industrial AI need to underwrite trade-lane and policy volatility as a base case, not a footnote. The winners won’t just be the best automators. They’ll be the ones who built for a world where the rules of movement change faster than the rules of production.

Moving Parts

New US Tariffs Target Imports From 60 Economies Under Section 301

The administration replaced its temporary 10% global tariff with a new Section 301 regime covering 60 economies and 99.4% of US imports, imposing duties of 10-12.5%. Days earlier it invoked Section 338 against Canada at 50%, a statute unused for actual duties since before World War II. Both moves trace to February’s Supreme Court IEEPA ruling, which forced the White House to excavate pre-war trade law for legal authority. The tariff architecture of the United States is being rebuilt from statutory foundations that most trade lawyers had to look up.

GE Vernova Gas Turbine Backlog Climbs To 116 GW, Taking Orders For 2031

GE Vernova’s gas turbine order backlog jumped 16% in a single quarter, from 100 GW to 116 GW. CEO Scott Strazik said the company is booking 2031 deliveries today, with data centers now joining utilities in the queue. The bottleneck for AI infrastructure is not compute or software. It is the physical machinery that generates the electricity to run compute, and that machinery is sold out five years forward.

Blank Sailings Are Now A Structural Feature Of Container Shipping

Carriers routinely pulled 10-14% of scheduled capacity on major east-west trades in the first half of 2026. Sea-Intelligence says blank sailings have transitioned from a demand-driven response to a permanent network management tool. Supply chain planners can no longer treat scheduled capacity as booked capacity. The baseline has shifted, and shippers pricing on published schedules are pricing on fiction.

Iran Escalation Disrupts Plastics Supply Chains Through Strait Of Hormuz

July fighting squashed the promise of a June ceasefire, creating a “stop-start recovery” for virgin plastics through the Strait of Hormuz. Polyethylene and polyolefin prices are rising as the flow of raw materials oscillates. Most Hormuz coverage focuses on oil. The quieter impact is on packaging and manufacturing inputs, where the disruption is harder to hedge because it keeps partially resolving and then collapsing again.

Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge Caps AI-Driven Electric Bill Increases

The White House secured commitments from states and utilities that Big Tech will pay for the energy costs of its data centers, preventing costs from being passed to residential ratepayers. The pledge makes explicit what had been an implicit political risk: AI infrastructure buildout was on a collision course with consumer electricity prices. It converts that collision from a latent liability into a formal constraint on how and where data centers get built.

Capital At Work

1872 Raises $15M Seed To Build Autonomous Steel Fabrication Factory

The startup combines agentic AI, robotic welding from Path Robotics, and a Factory OS layer to automate steel fabrication end-to-end. The model is designed to replicate across factories and manufacturing verticals. Automating steel is a hard enough problem that it has resisted automation at scale, which is exactly why the opportunity exists.

Arrakis Emerges From Stealth With $38M To Bring AI To Industrial Operations

Founded by ex-Palantir engineers, Arrakis is building an AI deployment layer for aerospace, energy, and logistics operators. Industrial AI is bifurcating between foundation model providers and deployment platforms. Arrakis is betting the deployment layer, where models meet messy physical operations, is where the value accrues.

Atoms Raises $1.7B Led By a16z For Industrial Robotics Platform

Travis Kalanick’s industrial automation company closed the largest private robotics round ever. The platform is already deployed in a Toyota production plant. The capital allocation tells its own story: $1.7B for a robotics platform signals that industrial automation has entered a deployment phase, not a research phase.

Bought Not Built

Altana Acquires Cervo AI To Automate Customs Brokerage End-To-End

The trade intelligence platform acquired Cervo AI’s agentic customs brokerage technology, creating an automated workflow from tariff classification through filing. With tariff regimes now changing weekly, the compliance function that customs brokers used to perform manually no longer scales. Altana is betting trade compliance is the next function to go fully agentic.

BasicBlock Acquires TrueNorth, Expands Into AI Dispatch

The freight factoring startup acquired TrueNorth’s AI dispatch and free loadboard platform, signaling a vertical expansion into operational tools for independent carriers. The deal reflects a broader pattern: fintech companies that started by financing freight are now absorbing the tools their customers use to find and move it.

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

Director of Brand and Communications at Stord in Atlanta, GA (remote)

Head of Structures at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO

AI Deployment Accelerator at Freight Hero in Raleigh-Durham, NC

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🎙 The Dynamo Show goes deep with The New Industrialists rejuvenating industry and commerce.

The Signal

China controls the vast majority of global rare earth processing, and this week the IEA put a number on what that concentration actually costs the West: $6.5T of production at risk if export controls take full effect. Automotive alone accounts for more than $3T of that exposure. The US and Europe together carry nearly half the total impact. This isn’t a hypothetical supply chain risk. It’s the current architecture of global manufacturing, priced.

What the headline leaves out is the trend line already running underneath it. China’s share of rare earth refining has fallen from 90% to 85% since 2023, as new capacity has come online in the US and Malaysia. If funded projects stay on schedule, that share could fall to 70% by 2035. Public financing for alternative supply chains has more than quadrupled since 2023, to $65B. The system is already responding. The real question isn’t whether diversification is happening. It’s whether it’s happening fast enough to matter for the companies making sourcing decisions this year.

That gap, between diversification underway and diversification sufficient, is where the next generation of founders should be building. Approaches to shorten the timeline are limited, we’re talking about the reality of physics. But we’re keen on materials foundation models, alternative processing technologies using chemistry, and recycling to build novel supply, among other things. If you’re doing this, give us a shout at hello@dynamo.vc.

- Santosh, Madelyn, Jon, and Team Dynamo

Moving Parts

China’s Rare Earth Export Curbs Endanger $6.5T Of Western Industry

The IEA warned that China’s critical mineral export restrictions now threaten $6.5 trillion in Western industrial production, touching everything from defense systems to wind turbines. The report reframes rare earths from a niche supply concern into a first-order economic security issue. Every supply chain that touches magnets, catalysts, or advanced ceramics runs through a chokepoint that one country controls.

FedEx CEO: Biggest Supply Chain Shift He’s Seen In 35 Years

Raj Subramaniam called the current tariff-driven trade reconfiguration the most significant shift he has witnessed in his career. When the CEO of the world’s largest cargo airline says restructuring is structural, not cyclical, the signal carries weight. FedEx’s network is a real-time proxy for global trade patterns, and Subramaniam sees the flows rewriting themselves.

project44 Splits Shipment Visibility Into Two Businesses

The visibility platform is separating into Project44 for enterprise shippers and LSP44 for logistics service providers, each with its own product stack and go-to-market. Worth noting LSP44 will join the AI-for-3PLs movement that is noisy across brokerage and freight forwarding customers. The split reflects a market realization that shippers and LSPs need fundamentally different products. One platform trying to serve both was a category assumption that did not hold.

$1.8T Pledged, Hundreds Of Thousands Of Jobs Empty

Companies have announced roughly $1.8T in US factory investment since January 2025, spread across 162 companies and 37 states. The number that governs how much actually gets built is not dollars. It is the trades and technicians the country has not trained. The reshoring boom’s binding constraint was never capital.

Airlines And Hyperscalers Clamor For Turbines Only A Few Companies Make The Parts

Gas turbine component makers are caught between surging aviation demand and data center operators racing to secure power. AI infrastructure buildout and aerospace recovery are colliding on the factory floor. The bottleneck is in specialty alloy forging and casting, where capacity additions take years, not quarters.

Capital At Work

Walden Robotics Launches With $300M Seed At $1.1B Valuation

Toyota Research Institute spinout debuted with the largest seed round in robotics history, backed by Toyota and NVIDIA. The company is already deployed in a Toyota production plant, building general-purpose manufacturing robots that learn and adapt on the job. Factory automation is entering a new phase where the robots come pretrained.

Senra Systems Raises $65M Series B For Wire Harness Manufacturing

The software-driven wire harness manufacturer is planning a third factory and 5x capacity expansion to meet defense and aerospace demand. Senra’s growth reflects a growing dependence on modernized, domestically sourced wiring infrastructure. Wire harnesses are one of the last major aircraft components still assembled by hand at scale.

TerraFirma Raises $115M For Semi-Autonomous Construction Equipment

Founded by two SpaceX alumni, TerraFirma builds construction equipment that operators control remotely via Xbox-style interfaces. The near-term market is not interplanetary. It is the earthside labor shortage on commercial construction sites, where operators are aging out faster than they can be replaced.

Bought Not Built

Uber Agrees To Buy Delivery Hero For $14.8B

Uber is acquiring the European food delivery giant in an all-stock deal, nearly doubling its global footprint to roughly 99 countries. The deal signals food delivery’s independent era is ending. Uber wants the network density and last-mile infrastructure Delivery Hero built across 70+ markets that it could not have replicated organically at this speed.

MasTec Acquires Superior Group For $1.7B

Infrastructure contractor MasTec acquired Superior Group, which designs and builds the electrical systems inside AI data centers, for $1.7B. The deal targets the specific bottleneck holding back hyperscale buildout: not compute, not cooling, but the high-voltage electrical work that powers it all. MasTec is betting that AI infrastructure is now a permanent category of construction, not a cycle.

CRH Acquires Arcosa For $8.5B In All-Cash Infrastructure Deal

The world’s largest building materials company is acquiring Arcosa at $150 per share, a 25% premium, adding 109 quarries, 9 asphalt plants, and 19 terminals. The deal strengthens CRH as the number one infrastructure player in North America. When the largest acquirer in building materials pays a quarter above market for aggregates, it is pricing in an infrastructure cycle that has not peaked.

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

Finance Director at Unit in Boston, MA

Head of Manufacturing at Gatik in Santa Clara, CA

Senior Mission Operations Manager at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO

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🎙 The Dynamo Show goes deep with The New Industrialists rejuvenating industry and commerce.

The Signal

Geothermal is having a moment, and the fervor for firm power is showing up in the numbers. Four major fundraises and a landmark IPO landed in the past few weeks alone, all driven by the same force: AI infrastructure needs 24/7 power faster than the grid can interconnect it. The proof point arrived in May, when Fervo Energy’s IPO raised roughly $1.9B raised on Nasdaq (FRVO), with the market cap surging past $10B on day one. That listing was preceded by a $462M Series E in December that included an equity check from Google, on top of a 115 MW power-purchase deal supplying Google’s Nevada data centers.

The capital is now moving upstream. Quaise Energy raised $134M in the first close of a Series B (total funding: $230M) to drill superhot rock for a 250 MW plant near Oregon’s Newberry Volcano. It has already signed an undisclosed hyperscaler as anchor customer for the first 50 MW. Endurance Energy, founded by an ex-SpaceX engineer, raised $54M in a Founders Fund-led Series A to tap subsea volcanic heat. Critical Energy raised $22M to fix the bottleneck around geothermal-specific turbines, built the way its SpaceX-alum founder used to build rocket engines. And Hephae Energy closed a $17.8M Series A to commercialize ultra-high-temperature drilling robotics.

What’s worth noting here is who’s writing the checks. Google took equity in Fervo’s last round, and Quaise’s undisclosed hyperscaler customer is effectively underwriting a first-of-its-kind plant before it’s built. Offtake agreements are turning into balance-sheet bets, and when the buyer brings its own capacity and its own capital, geothermal’s chicken-and-egg financing problem gets a lot easier to solve.

We put this dynamic to Mike Matson, co-founder and CEO of Birch Geothermal, on this week’s Dynamo Show. His take: geothermal is moving from a rounding error in the US power mix (~4 GW today) to a real firm-power wedge, driven not by a green premium but by speed to power. Give it a listen, and if you’re building in the space, reach out.

-Santosh, Madelyn, Jon, and Team Dynamo

Moving Parts

Toyota To Spend $3.6B Moving Tacoma Production From Mexico To US

Toyota will double the size of its San Antonio assembly plant and add 2,000 jobs to bring Tacoma truck production stateside from Mexico. The move puts $3.6B behind the reshoring narrative at a moment when most manufacturers are still hedging between domestic and offshore. It also puts pressure on every other OEM running border-adjacent production to show their hand.

US Truckload Spot Rates Surpass COVID-19 Highs Under Supply Pressure

National dry van spot rates have climbed past the peaks set during pandemic-era disruption, but the driver this time is supply contraction, not a demand boom. Ton-mile volumes remain flat while carrier exits have thinned capacity. What demand growth exists is concentrated in AI infrastructure buildouts, not broad economic expansion.

Semiconductor Worker Shortfall Endangers US Chip Factory Revival

A nationwide shortage of high-skilled workers threatens to delay construction of billions of dollars in new semiconductor plants across the US. The constraint is not capital or policy. It is the physical workforce required to build and operate fabs at scale, and the pipeline to produce those workers does not exist yet.

Volkswagen Cuts Global Model Lineup By 50% And Restructures Factory Footprint

Volkswagen’s executive board is eliminating up to half its global model lineup and reducing offering complexity by 75%. The restructuring signals that the era of broad-portfolio automaking is ending. Overcapacity and margin compression are forcing the world’s largest automaker to shrink its way back to profitability.

Shein Wins Chinese Approval For Hong Kong IPO At $40-50B Valuation

Shein secured Chinese regulatory approval for a Hong Kong listing after failed attempts in the US and London. The valuation has dropped from a $100B peak to $40-50B, reflecting both geopolitical friction and regulatory risk. The fast-fashion supply chain giant’s pivot to Hong Kong underscores how cross-border commerce businesses are getting squeezed between jurisdictions.

Capital At Work

Hephae Energy Raises $17.8M Series A For Hot Rock Geothermal Drilling

Hephae Energy Technology closed a $17.8M Series A co-led by Susquehanna Sustainable Investments and Underground Ventures to scale robotic drilling technology for high-temperature geothermal. Two geothermal drilling startups raising in the same week signals that the energy transition’s subsurface bottleneck is attracting real capital.

Auger Raises $50M For Supply Chain Platform Led By Ex-Amazon Operations Chief

Auger, the supply chain technology startup founded by former Amazon consumer CEO Dave Clark, raised $50M and landed its first major enterprise customers. Clark’s bet is that the operational infrastructure Amazon built internally can be productized for the rest of the market. The round validates that enterprise supply chain orchestration is a venture-scale category.

Quaise Energy Raises $134M Series B First Close For Superhot Geothermal

Quaise Energy closed the first tranche of its Series B at $134M, led by Prelude Ventures with participation from JERA and Idemitsu Kosan, bringing total funding to $230M. The company is building the world’s first superhot geothermal power plant in Oregon using microwave-based deep drilling. Geothermal went from conference curiosity to a nine-figure fundraising category in under two years.

Bought Not Built

DEUTZ Acquires FFG Flensburger For ~€1.6B In Defense Pivot

German engine maker DEUTZ will acquire FFG Flensburger Fahrzeugbau, a military vehicle manufacturer, for approximately €1.6B. The deal transforms DEUTZ from a powertrain supplier into a European defense systems provider owning both propulsion and platform. European defense spending is remaking the industrial landscape, and the buyers are moving faster than the startups.

Assent Acquires iPoint To Consolidate Supply Chain Compliance

Blackstone and Vista-backed Assent acquired German auto compliance specialist iPoint to build an end-to-end supply chain sustainability platform. Product compliance and lifecycle reporting have shifted from nice-to-have to regulatory mandate for automakers. The deal signals that compliance infrastructure is consolidating before the rules are even finalized.

Descartes Acquires Chilean Last-Mile Routing Firm Drivin For $30M

Descartes Systems acquired Chilean last-mile routing and scheduling provider Drivin for $30M, extending its logistics technology footprint into Latin America. The deal adds regional routing intelligence that cannot be replicated from outside the market. Last-mile optimization is now a global land grab.

From The Portfolio

Manna Plots Major US Expansion For Autonomous Drone Delivery

Manna Aero, the Ireland-based autonomous drone delivery startup, is planning a major expansion into the United States market. The company has operated commercial drone delivery services in Ireland and is now scaling its fleet and operations stateside.

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

Finance Director at UNIT in Boston, MA

General Manager, Utah Operations at FuelUp in Lehi, UT

Head Of Structures at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO

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🎙 The Dynamo Show, goes deep with The New Industrialists, rejuvenating industry and commerce.

The Signal

As some of you might know, I (Santosh) love history and so I thought I’d take the 250th anniversary we’re celebrating in the US to distill some interesting facts about the Revolutionary War that touches on our focus at Dynamo around the physical economy.

The American Revolution wasn’t lost or won on ideology. It was lost or won on gunpowder, and the colonies barely had any. At the outbreak of war, there was exactly one operating powder mill in America, and it couldn’t produce enough volume or quality to arm an army in the field. The Navigation Acts and British colonial policy had spent decades discouraging domestic powder production, so when the war started, America was working from stockpiles and imports, not manufacturing capacity. By the winter of 1775, Washington had burned through nearly the entire powder supply the Continental Army started with, and the shortage was severe enough that troops sometimes had to sit through British cannonade without returning fire. The war effort didn’t stall for lack of conviction. It stalled for lack of physical infrastructure that took years, not months, to build.

What actually solved it wasn’t a single mill or a single hero. It was a portfolio of workarounds run in parallel: capturing British supply shipments outright, standing up domestic gunsmith shops in Fredericksburg, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other manufacturing centers, and eventually importing tens of thousands of French and European arms once the alliance came through. No single channel could carry the load alone, so Congress ran capture, domestic production, and foreign import simultaneously and let whichever one worked fastest carry the weight in a given month. That’s the same logic that shows up in every physical economy business we look at today. You don’t get to wait for the “right” answer to materialize. You build three imperfect ones at once and route around whichever one breaks that week. The founders who understand that operational discipline, not the ones waiting for a clean solution, are the ones who make it through the years it actually takes to build real capacity.

- Santosh, Madelyn, Jon and the Dynamo Team

Moving Parts

Ships For America Act Scaled Down Ahead Of House Vote

Key provisions of the Ships for America Act, including a 250-ship commercial fleet mandate and maritime tax incentives, were stripped before the House Rules Committee vote. The bill’s surviving shipbuilding investment clauses are a fraction of what was proposed, exposing how far the gap remains between bipartisan rhetoric on maritime sovereignty and the political will to fund it. The US still operates fewer than 90 internationally trading vessels while relying on foreign-flagged ships for 99% of seaborne commerce.

Retailers Rush In Holiday Imports Early To Avoid Looming Costs

US retailers are front-loading holiday merchandise imports months ahead of schedule to beat rising tariff and ocean freight costs. Shipping rates on Asia-to-US lanes have jumped as importers compress six months of ordering into a few weeks. The pattern mirrors the pre-tariff inventory surges of 2024-2025, but this time carriers have the pricing power to extract premiums from the urgency.

CATL Says Mining Is Now The Battery Supply Bottleneck

The world’s largest battery maker says raw material extraction cannot keep pace with cell production capacity, and has restarted its own Jiangxi lithium mine to close the gap. CATL’s move upstream signals that battery manufacturing is no longer the constraint in the energy transition. The bottleneck has shifted to mines, where permitting timelines and capital intensity make scaling far slower than building gigafactories.

AI Data Centers Now Compete With Steelmakers For Power

Steel manufacturers across the Midwest are warning that AI data centers are bidding away the reliable baseload electricity that heavy industry depends on. The Steel Manufacturers Association reports that electric arc furnace operators face curtailment risk as utilities prioritize hyperscale loads. The collision between the AI buildout and existing industrial capacity exposes a grid that was never designed to serve both simultaneously.

McKinsey: Building A Resilient Industrial Base May Require $2T In Investment

McKinsey’s chairs argue that reshoring US manufacturing to withstand supply chain disruptions and geopolitical risk will cost roughly $2T, far more than current public and private commitments. The gap between political ambition and deployed capital continues to widen. The analysis underscores that tariffs and incentives alone cannot close a deficit built over three decades of offshoring.

Capital At Work

Arcturus Raises $8M Seed To Halve Grid Losses With Nano-Infused Copper

Arcturus emerged from stealth with carbon nanomaterial-infused copper conductors that cut electrical transmission losses on existing grid infrastructure. The technology targets a problem hiding in plain sight: the US grid loses roughly 5% of all electricity generated to resistance in conventional copper wiring. If the material performs at scale, it retrofits the grid without rebuilding it.

CarbonSix Secures $40M Series A To Deploy Physical AI Across Manufacturing

CarbonSix raised $40M co-led by DSC Investment and LB Investment to scale robotic intelligence software and hardware for factory-floor deployment. The San Francisco-based startup builds deploy-ready AI for manufacturing lines, not lab demos, using a proprietary data flywheel where tool usage on the factory floor generates task-specific training data. Physical AI is moving from proof-of-concept to commercial contracts, and the round validates that factory operators are now buying, not just piloting.

Quantum Systems Raises $1.2B Series D At $8B Valuation

German defense drone maker Quantum Systems closed a $1.2B round led by Blackstone, the largest European defensetech financing to date. The company’s fixed-wing reconnaissance and strike drones are deployed across NATO forces, with a deepening Airbus partnership for multi-domain autonomous systems. European defense spending is accelerating and the capital is flowing to companies with fielded hardware, not slide decks.

Bought Not Built

CMA CGM Acquires FedEx Supply Chain For $1.4B

French shipping giant CMA CGM will acquire FedEx’s contract logistics arm, adding North American warehousing, distribution, and fulfillment to its ocean-to-last-mile portfolio. The deal extends CMA CGM’s vertical integration strategy from port to warehouse. For 3PLs and freight forwarders, the consolidation of ocean carriers into end-to-end logistics platforms is reshaping who controls the supply chain.

Rocket Lab To Acquire Iridium Communications For $8B

Rocket Lab will acquire satellite constellation operator Iridium in the largest space-sector M&A deal on record. The merger transforms Rocket Lab from a launch services provider into a vertically integrated space infrastructure company owning rockets, satellites, and the communication network they serve. The deal signals that the space economy is entering its consolidation phase, where owning the full stack matters more than any single capability.

Onsemi To Acquire Synaptics For $7B

Power semiconductor maker onsemi agreed to acquire Synaptics, gaining its IoT and edge computing portfolio to build an integrated platform for physical AI systems. The deal combines onsemi’s strength in automotive and industrial sensing with Synaptics’ connectivity and processing capabilities. As AI moves from data centers to factories, vehicles, and infrastructure, the companies betting on physical AI need the full sensor-to-compute stack under one roof.

From The Portfolio

Token Transit: TARC In Louisville Launches Mobile Ticketing

Louisville’s TARC transit system launched mobile ticketing through the Token Transit app, allowing riders to purchase and validate fares directly from their phones. The rollout expands Token Transit’s footprint across US public transit agencies as mobile-first fare payment becomes the standard for mid-size systems upgrading from legacy infrastructure. Dynamo is a Token Transit investor.

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

General Manager, Utah Operations at FuelUp in Lehi, UT

Strategy Associate at Stord in Atlanta, GA

HR Manager - USA at Manna in Tulsa, OK

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The Signal

The trades shortage isn’t new, but the pressure on it keeps compounding. Three demand curves are pulling from the same depleted labor pool simultaneously: manufacturing reshoring, the AI data center buildout, and grid modernization. Each on its own would strain supply. Together, they create a structural bottleneck that no wage increase alone can fix. Construction wages grew 4.2% year-over-year through mid-2025, ahead of the national average, and the gap between open roles and apprenticeship entrants is still roughly 4 to 1.

We’ve been thinking hard about this at Dynamo. Earlier this year we published two pieces tracing how the demand crisis developed and how decades of deliberate policy decisions dismantled the training pipelines that used to absorb it. The short version: America didn’t stumble into this shortage. It chose it. The opportunity now is in rebuilding what was taken apart, and we think there’s a real business to be built around vertically integrated talent platforms that own sourcing, training, placement, and upskilling rather than just one piece of it. If you’re working on this problem, read Part 1 and Part 2, then reach out at hello@dynamo.vc.

-Santosh, Madelyn, Jon, and Team Dynamo

Moving Parts

Army Will Lease Land on Bases for Critical Mineral Production

The Army will lease underused land on military installations to private companies for mining critical minerals including lithium, cobalt, and rare earths. The program, expected to launch with sites in the western US, marks the first time the military has opened base property for resource extraction as a national security measure. The US currently imports over 70% of its critical minerals, with China controlling processing for most of them. The approach sidesteps the years-long permitting process that has stalled civilian mining projects by leveraging federal land where environmental review is streamlined. For defense manufacturers and battery suppliers, a domestic source of critical minerals on military land changes the value chain calculus.

US Manufacturing Rises on Front-Loading but Factory Employment Tumbles to Six-Year Low

US manufacturing activity rose to 55.7 PMI in June as companies placed orders ahead of anticipated shortages and price increases tied to Middle East trade disruptions- the jump marks the strongest expansion reading in over a year. But the signal underneath is deteriorating: factory employment fell to 47.0, the lowest in six years, as manufacturers cut headcount to offset rising operating costs. The divergence between rising production volume and falling employment is worth paying attention to as companies build inventory rather than building capacity.

US Bets Billions in Low-Cost Loans to Revive Nuclear Power

The DoE is deploying billions in low-interest federal loans to restart shuttered nuclear plants and build new reactors. The initiative reflects the convergence of two forces: AI data centers demanding reliable baseload power and a national grid struggling with capacity constraints. Nuclear provides carbon-free, 24/7 generation that solar and wind cannot match, and the restart economics have improved as wholesale electricity prices rise. The DoE’s Loan Programs Office has become one of the most active capital allocators in energy, offering terms that private lenders will not match for nuclear’s long construction timelines and regulatory complexity.

AI Sales Start to Justify Data-Center Spending Boom

Global AI revenue outside China hit $25B in Q1 2026, topping annualized depreciation costs for the second consecutive quarter. The milestone gives hyperscalers their strongest data yet to justify the infrastructure buildout that has consumed hundreds of billions in capital spending. Annualized AI revenue is now running above $100B, with inference workloads growing faster than training. For the physical economy, the implications are concrete: data center construction, power generation, cooling systems, and semiconductor fabrication all benefit from the validation that AI spending is generating returns, not just consuming capital.

Amazon Tests Wearable Tech to Monitor Warehouse Labor

Amazon is piloting a program called Right Station Link that puts wearable devices on warehouse workers in indirect roles such as maintenance, safety, and floor management to track their location and task duration. The program targets roughly $2.8B in labor spend that Amazon currently cannot monitor automatically because these workers move between assignments rather than staying at fixed stations. Amazon planned to use Zebra hand-worn scanners but is making the software hardware-agnostic after supply chain delays threatened the timeline. The pilot raises immediate questions about worker surveillance, but the underlying move is about visibility into the last category of warehouse labor that lacks digital measurement.

Capital At Work

AquaPoro Raises $5M Seed to Generate Water from Air

AquaPoro Technologies closed a $5M seed round led by Breakout Ventures with participation from Cerberus Ventures, Humba Ventures, and One Small Planet. The startup engineers industrial water infrastructure that generates net new water from ambient air. AquaPoro’s technology addresses an $8.8T infrastructure bottleneck as freshwater reserves deplete and regulations tighten globally. Proceeds will fund manufacturing scale-up and deployment of the company’s first commercial pilot installations.

General Intuition Raises $320M Series A at $2.3B Valuation

General Intuition raised $320M in Series A funding at a $2.3B valuation for its platform that uses video game footage to train AI agents for real-world robotics. The New York-based startup, led by 31-year-old CEO Pim de Witte, trains AI agents to navigate 3D environments by processing hundreds of hours of gameplay. The same neural architecture powering the game-playing agent also controls a quadrupedal robot in the company’s R&D facility. The bet is that video game environments provide the richest, cheapest source of spatial training data for physical AI, cheaper than synthetic simulation and more scalable than real-world teleoperation.

Agility Robotics Plans to Go Public via SPAC in a $2.5B Deal

Agility Robotics, the humanoid robot maker that spun out of Oregon State University in 2015, will go public through a merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI in a deal valuing the company at roughly $2.5B. The transaction is expected to generate more than $620M in proceeds. Agility’s Digit robots are already deployed in warehouse operations, making this the first major humanoid robotics company to reach public markets.

Bought Not Built

CRH Acquires Arcosa for $8.5B in Biggest Deal to Date

Irish building materials giant CRH agreed to acquire Texas-based Arcosa for $8.5B, the largest deal in its history. The acquisition, which eclipses CRH’s previous record purchase of assets from Holcim and Lafarge, reinforces CRH’s position as the top infrastructure materials player in North America. Arcosa manufactures aggregates, specialty materials, and infrastructure products. The deal rides the wave of US infrastructure spending from the IIJA and CHIPS Act and consolidates CRH’s supply chain across construction materials at a time when capacity is at a premium.

MSCI Acquires First Street for Climate Risk Data

Financial data giant MSCI acquired First Street, the property-level climate risk analytics provider, to embed physical climate risk capabilities into its financial decision-making platform. First Street has built the most granular dataset mapping flood, fire, wind, and heat exposure at the individual property level across the US. The acquisition brings climate risk data into the same ecosystem where institutional investors price assets, making physical risk a default input to portfolio construction rather than a separate analysis. For real estate, insurance, and infrastructure investors, this is a signal that climate exposure data is moving from nice-to-have to table stakes.

Segro Rejects £16.6B Takeover Offer from Prologis

UK warehouse landlord Segro rejected a £16.6B takeover approach from Prologis. Prologis, the world’s largest logistics property owner, made an unsolicited bid for its British counterpart, which owns and manages warehouses and industrial parks across the UK and Europe. Segro’s board concluded the offer fundamentally undervalued the company and its growth prospects. The bid reflects the ongoing race among logistics real estate investors to lock up warehouse capacity as e-commerce and nearshoring drive demand for distribution space. The rejection signals Segro believes the best returns are still ahead.

From The Portfolio

Raft AI Featured in Loadstar State of AI in Supply Chain Report

The Loadstar and Raft co-produced the State of AI in Supply Chain report, surveying more than 200 supply chain executives and practitioners worldwide. The findings reveal a widening gap between executive optimism and frontline readiness: 77.5% of VPs and executives describe themselves as optimistic about AI’s career impact, but that figure drops to 37.5% among analysts and specialists. Only 22.2% of respondents said AI had been deployed at scale, while 43.2% remained in experimentation or had not started. The biggest barriers are organizational, not technical: 53.8% cited a lack of in-house AI expertise and change management capability, while 48.7% pointed to integration difficulties. Dynamo is a Raft investor.

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

Head of Structures at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO

General Manager, Utah Operations at FuelUp in Lehi, UT

Director, FP&A at Sennder in Berlin, Germany

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The Signal

After two decades of near-flat consumption, US electricity demand is hitting record levels, driven by AI infrastructure buildout, manufacturing reshoring, and electrification. Goldman Sachs projects data center power demand alone rises from 31 GW in 2025 to 66 GW by 2027. The instinct is to read this as a generation problem. It is not. US power plant developers plan to add 86 GW of new utility-scale generating capacity to the grid in 2026 across solar, wind, natural gas, and storage — a record if realized, following 53 GW added in 2025, the largest single-year addition in over two decades. Generation, regardless of source, is not the binding constraint. Over 70% of US power transformers are more than 25 years old and the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation’s energy infrastructure a D+ in 2025. More than 2,060 GW of generation and storage capacity sits in interconnection queues, with most projects taking years to reach commercial operation. The US can build supply. It cannot move it.

Solar and grid-scale batteries address that problem in two distinct ways. At the front of the meter, utility-scale solar — roughly 75% of all US solar generation — adds capacity directly to the grid, and co-located batteries time-shift that output to evening demand peaks, stabilizing the system without waiting years for new transmission. Behind the meter, the dynamic is different and worth being precise about. BTM batteries do not bypass the interconnection problem — they still need a grid connection to charge. What they do is reduce peak demand on that connection, shrinking the size of interconnection a facility needs to secure and, in some cases, making the difference between getting approved or not. Paired with on-site generation — solar, gas, or both — they reduce grid dependency further and provide resilience when the grid is stressed or unavailable. The model gaining traction among data centers and large industrial operators is a hybrid: on-site generation plus batteries as the primary power layer, with a grid connection used selectively for supplemental capacity. That combination does not solve the interconnection problem. It makes the problem smaller and more manageable while adding a resilience layer the grid alone cannot provide.

The grid buildout is a physical economy problem. We are leaning in and looking for the right founders to back. If that is you, send us a note!

- Santosh, Jon, Madelyn, and the Dynamo Team

Moving Parts

GM in Talks to Supply Weapons Parts to Lockheed Martin

General Motors would manufacture widely used parts that could help Lockheed scale weapons production at a time when Pentagon demand far outstrips the defense industrial base’s capacity. The arrangement echoes Detroit’s role as the Arsenal of Democracy during World War II. If formalized, the deal signals that defense production constraints have become severe enough to pull automotive manufacturing capacity off the commercial line and into munitions. That said, a couple OEMs have told us that an increase in idle capacity is forcing them to consider their role as a contract manufacturer.

Samsung Sees Rising Chip Production Requests from BYD, Google, and AMD

Samsung is receiving a surge of chip fabrication requests as demand for AI infrastructure strains TSMC’s advanced capacity. The shift is structural: TSMC’s utilization at leading-edge nodes is running near full, and customers that once treated Samsung’s foundry as a backup are now placing primary orders. Samsung’s ability to absorb overflow demand could determine whether AI hardware deployment stays on schedule or faces the same bottleneck that plagued automotive chips in 2021-22. The companies winning foundry share today will set the manufacturing map for the next generation of AI accelerators.

AI for Industry Is Europe’s Hope to Salvage Its Manufacturing Edge

Europe is betting that applying AI to industrial operations can offset its growing cost and scale disadvantages against the US and China, Bloomberg reported. Siemens, Schneider Electric, and French AI startup Mistral are leading a push to embed AI directly into factory floors, energy grids, and supply chains. The strategy plays to Europe’s remaining strength: deep domain expertise in industrial processes that pure software companies lack. Industrial AI that reduces waste, optimizes energy consumption, and increases throughput has a faster payback than consumer AI and faces less competition from hyperscalers.

Toyota and NREL to Build 1MW Fuel Cell as Diesel Backup Replacement

Toyota and the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory are building a prototype 1MW hydrogen fuel cell power generation system designed as a drop-in replacement for conventional diesel backup generators. The PEM fuel cell system, installed at NREL’s Flatirons Campus in Colorado, targets the data center market where operators are under pressure to eliminate diesel from their backup power infrastructure. Data centers currently rely on diesel generators that sit idle 99% of the time but must start instantly during grid outages. Hydrogen fuel cells offer zero-emission backup with comparable response times, and the project’s scale at 1MW matches the typical backup load of a mid-size data center facility. Shared by Gary at Celadyne.

The 2026 State of Logistics Report: Forged in Disruption

The 37th annual CSCMP State of Logistics Report, authored by Kearney and presented by Penske Logistics, finds that persistent disruption has become the defining feature of the American supply chain. US business logistics costs came in at $2.4T, amounting to 7.8% of GDP. The report identifies five structural forces showing no signs of resolution: asymmetric global growth, tightening financial conditions, accelerating trade flow realignment, labor and productivity constraints, and energy price volatility. US trade policy changed on average every 1.5 weeks during the reporting period. The clear message: organizations that assume stability is around the corner will be outperformed by those building resilience into network design, sourcing, and inventory strategy as a permanent operating capability.

Capital At Work

Foundation Alloy Raises $22M Series A for Advanced Metallurgy

Foundation Alloy raised $22M in Series A funding led by Voyager Ventures to commercialize its solid-state alloying platform. The startup’s MetalsFIRST technology smashes metal powder particles together rather than melting them, creating alloys with properties that conventional casting cannot achieve. Early applications span military drones, luxury goods, and cutting tools. This is a bet that advanced materials production can be disrupted at the process level, not just the chemistry, and that defense and aerospace buyers will pay a premium for alloys their competitors cannot source.

Copia Automation Raises $26M to Unify Industrial Code Management

Copia Automation raised $26M in funding co-led by AE Ventures and Squadra Ventures, bringing total capital raised to $55M. The company provides Git-based version control, automated backup, and structured recovery for PLC code running industrial infrastructure. Every factory, power plant, and water treatment facility runs on PLC code that is typically stored on USB drives or local hard drives with no version history. Copia is building the DevOps layer for operational technology and reflects growing urgency as critical infrastructure digitizes without the software management tools that IT has had for decades.

xDoF Raises $70M to Build the Data Layer for Physical AI

xDoF emerged from stealth with $70M in funding from Thrive Capital, a16z, Lux Capital, Spark Capital, and WndrCo. The startup builds the data pipelines, collection tools, and annotation systems that frontier AI labs and robotics companies need to train robots for real-world interaction. Teaching machines to manipulate objects in unstructured environments requires data that cannot be scraped from the internet. It must be collected physically, annotated precisely, and structured for training. We believe xDoF is on a path to build generalized robots with the data based on their website and career postings.

Bought Not Built

Accenture Acquires Dragos Stake, runZero, and NetRise for OT Security

Accenture acquired a majority stake in Dragos and all of runZero and NetRise, assembling an end-to-end operational technology cybersecurity stack. The triple acquisition builds on Accenture’s $10B cybersecurity business and targets the critical infrastructure layer: power grids, pipelines, manufacturing plants, and data centers. OT security has lagged IT security by a decade, and the gap is closing fast as industrial systems connect to enterprise networks. Accenture is placing a large bet that the next wave of cybersecurity spending will come from operations teams, not IT departments.

EQT Acquires Exolaunch in First Direct Space Investment

European private equity firm EQT signed a definitive agreement to acquire Berlin-based Exolaunch through its EQT X fund, marking the firm’s first direct investment in the space sector. Exolaunch provides satellite deployment and launch services, having deployed over 380 satellites to orbit. The deal signals that institutional private equity now views commercial space infrastructure as mature enough for buyout-style investing. For the broader space economy, PE entry typically compresses margins and professionalizes operations, both of which accelerate the transition from government-contract dependency to commercial scale.

Lone Star Leads ContiTech Buyout from Continental

Lone Star has emerged as the frontrunner to acquire Continental’s ContiTech industrial unit, Bloomberg reported. ContiTech manufactures conveyor belts, air springs, hoses, and surface materials for mining, automotive, and industrial customers. The divestiture is one of the largest European industrial carve-outs of the year and reflects Continental’s strategic shift toward automotive technology. For the buyer, ContiTech offers a portfolio of industrial components with long replacement cycles and pricing power in niche segments where switching costs are high.

From The Portfolio

Driverless Trucks Moving Into Commercial Freight Operations

Bloomberg Opinion columnist Thomas Black rode in an autonomous truck and examined the safety data supporting driverless long-haul freight deployment. The piece highlights that Gatik, Kodiak, Aurora, and Bot Auto have moved into initial commercial operations for freight trucks without drivers. Large truck crashes killed 5,837 people in the US in 2022, with fatigue and distraction as leading causes, and autonomous systems address both. Dynamo is a Gatik investor.

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

IT IAM and SaaS Integration Engineer at Gatik in Mountain View, CA

Senior Mechanisms Engineer at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO

General Manager, Utah Operations at FuelUp in Lehi, UT

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🎙 The Dynamo Show, goes deep with The New Industrialists, rejuvenating industry and commerce.

The Signal

SpaceX priced at $135 Thursday night, opened at $150, and closed at $160.95 Friday, up 19% on the day and the largest IPO in market history. The spectacle is deserved. But the S-1 tells the more interesting story.

Starlink generated $11.4B in revenue and $4.4B in operating profit in 2025, the only profitable segment in the company. It is simultaneously subsidizing Starship R&D, the launch business, and xAI’s $6B+ annual burn. One satellite internet service funding three bets on the future at once.

What makes that remarkable is what those bets add up to. SpaceX is building vertical infrastructure for intelligence: connectivity is the pipe, compute is the processing layer, and the same physical network delivering bandwidth today is designed to deliver inference tomorrow. That integration is genuinely new.

It is also a vindication of something the last decade of software-first investing largely forgot. Heavy capex was penalized. Asset-light won. SpaceX at $2T is the market relearning that when physical infrastructure generates recurring revenue and forecloses competition, it commands a premium. Capex is a moat again. And if the long-run vision holds, SpaceX is not a utility. It is the infrastructure layer for an entirely new frontier.

- Santosh and the Dynamo Ventures team

Moving Parts

America’s Four-Year Trucking Slump is Finally Over

The trucking industry’s punishing freight rate downturn appears to be over. Hundreds of thousands of carriers exited the market over nearly four years of declining revenues, and the survivors are now seeing pricing power return as capacity tightens and demand stabilizes. Estes Express Lines president Webb Estes called it “a breath of air for an industry that maybe felt like they were running out of air.” For shippers, the cycle turn means rate increases are coming. For the broader economy, trucking has historically been a leading indicator and right now, it’s flashing green.

FANUC Partners with Google to Advance Physical AI in Factory Robots

The world’s largest industrial robotics company (1.1M robots installed globally) is teaming up with Google to build what both are calling “Physical AI” — factory robots that can understand natural language, process real-time vision, and adapt to unstructured environments. FANUC brings the hardware ecosystem; Google brings Gemini and its Intrinsic robotics platform. The partnership signals that the convergence of foundation models and industrial automation isn’t theoretical anymore, it’s being engineered into production lines.

Trump Modifies Section 232 Tariffs On Aluminum, Copper, and Steel

A June 1 presidential proclamation restructures Section 232 duties across three critical metals and their derivatives. Key changes: tariffs on agricultural and certain industrial equipment drop from 25% to 15%, a new 10% rate applies to foreign capital equipment containing at least 85% US-origin steel or aluminum, and temporary relief runs through December 2027. The stated goal is to “spur investment in American agriculture, housing, and manufacturing.” For anyone building, growing, or making things in the US, this reshuffles input costs across the board.

Bechtel Wins Role on $100B Micron Megafab In New York

Bechtel has been selected as the construction partner for Micron’s semiconductor megafab in Clay, NY. This is the single largest semiconductor manufacturing project in US history. The facility is part of the broader push to reshore chip production and reduce dependence on Asian fabrication. At $100B, it dwarfs most infrastructure projects and will drive years of demand for construction materials, skilled labor, and industrial equipment across the Northeast.

Critical Minerals are Reshaping Global Trade

A new UNCTAD report finds that trade in critical energy transition minerals has tripled over the past decade, with concentration risk intensifying at every stage of the value chain. The DRC accounts for 74% of global cobalt production; Indonesia controls 67% of nickel. Lithium demand is projected to rise 353% by 2040. Governments are responding with export controls, strategic stockpiles, and industrial policy which is turning mineral supply chains into geopolitical chessboards.

Capital At Work

Volund Manufacturing Secures $12M Seed for MIL-SPEC Propulsion and Automated Manufacturing

Huntington Beach-based Volund Manufacturing raised a $12M seed co-led by Root Ventures and Squadra Ventures, with participation from Marlinspike, First In, and Output Ventures. Volund has re-engineered propulsion system production for the era of affordable mass: building a software-driven manufacturing execution system (MES) that delivers low-cost, attritable engines at the pace and precision required by the defense supply chain. The round underscores growing investor appetite for defense-industrial startups reshoring critical manufacturing.

Theker Raises €85M In Europe’s Largest Robotics Series A

Barcelona-based Theker raised €85M led by CRV, with Samsung, LVMH’s Aglaé Ventures, Inditex, and Cathay Capital participating in the largest robotics Series A ever raised in Europe. Theker builds AI-powered factory robots designed to be general-purpose rather than task-specific, addressing a core manufacturing pain point: current industrial robots require extensive reprogramming for every new job. The company is targeting the gap between rigid traditional automation and humanoids that aren’t ready yet.

Standard Bots Raises $200M Series C At $1B Valuation To Scale American-Made Industrial Robots

Standard Bots, America’s largest manufacturer of AI-native industrial robots, raised $200M led by RoboStrategy and General Catalyst. The New York-based company is expanding its manufacturing footprint and is on pace to deliver 10% of new US industrial robot deployments by next year. Co-founder Evan Beard frames the mission in stark terms: the US has shed 7M manufacturing jobs since 1979, and “sourcing from China is 5 to 10 times cheaper.” Standard Bots is betting that AI-native robots manufactured domestically can close that gap.

SpaceX Raises $75B in Largest IPO in History, Debuts on Nasdaq at $1.75T

SpaceX priced 555.6M shares at $135 each, raising $75B in the largest IPO ever recorded. Shares opened at $150 on June 12, surged past $160, and closed the first trading day at $158 — giving the company a $1.75T market cap and making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. The ten-bank syndicate allocated 30% to retail investors. Revenue comes from three business lines: Starlink (satellite broadband), launch services, and Starshield (government/defense). SpaceX reported $14.2B in trailing revenue and the listing gives employees and early investors their first real liquidity event.

Einride Begins Trading on Nasdaq via SPAC at $1.35B Valuation

Swedish autonomous EV freight company Einride soared in its Nasdaq debut, with shares rising over 100% before a temporary trading halt was triggered. The company went public via SPAC merger with Legato III, raising over $200M including $113M in PIPE capital from EQT Ventures. CEO Roozbeh Charli said the company has “proven out the product and tech” and is now focused on scaling commercial relationships. Einride provides cab-less autonomous EV trucks and freight services, and licenses its autonomous driving system and planning AI to third parties.

Bought Not Built

Waymo Acquires Apple’s Self-Driving Proving Ground for $220M

Waymo purchased Apple’s 5,500-acre autonomous vehicle proving ground in Wittman, Arizona for $220M- nearly double what Apple paid in 2021. The facility includes a 115-acre city course, a 35-mile oval track, and a freeway course purpose-built for AV testing. Apple’s exit from the self-driving race becomes Waymo’s expansion play: the Alphabet subsidiary now operates the largest private AV testing network in the country.

Snap-on Acquires Diesel Laptops For $100M

Snap-on acquired Irmo, SC-based Diesel Laptops, which specializes in diagnostics, repair information, and digital solutions for commercial trucks and off-highway vehicles. The deal expands Snap-on’s heavy-duty capabilities spanning mining, agriculture, and infrastructure equipment and adds proprietary experience-based data to its repair systems library. As vehicle complexity increases, the data layer around diagnosis and repair becomes the real asset.

STB Accepts Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern Merger Application

The Surface Transportation Board accepted the UP-NS merger application for review but pushed the timeline, giving the railroads until July 27 to submit additional information. The $85B deal would create a coast-to-coast single-carrier rail system with a combined enterprise value exceeding $250B. A final close is now unlikely before fall 2027 at the earliest. The STB review will test whether consolidation benefits of network efficiency and intermodal throughput outweigh competition concerns in an already concentrated industry.

From The Portfolio

Pepsi and Gatik Announce Autonomous Freight Partnership

Dynamo portfolio company Gatik signed a multi-year strategic partnership with Pepsi making it the largest commercial autonomous freight deployment to date. Gatik is already operating driverless trucks for Pepsi across Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas, moving products daily through high-frequency, time-sensitive regional networks. Pepsi SVP of Supply Chain Jim Farrell: “Gatik brings the autonomous freight technology, commercial experience, and scale we need to strengthen service, add capacity, and move products more consistently for our customers.”

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

Senior Software Engineer at Gatik in Mountain View, CA

Senior Structures Engineer at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO

AI Deployment Accelerator at Freight Hero in Raleigh/Durham, NC

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🎙 The Dynamo Show, goes deep with The New Industrialists, rejuvenating industry and commerce.

The Signal

US manufacturing just printed its strongest reading in four years. The May ISM came in at 54, marking a fifth straight month of expansion, with new orders growing for a fifth month and production for a seventh. The share of manufacturing GDP in contraction collapsed from 19% in April to just 2% in May, and 16 of 18 industries grew.

The freight market is confirming it physically. Average LTL shipment weights are climbing at the major carriers, and that matters because industrial freight is dense freight. When shipments get heavier, factories are moving material rather than forecasts.

Some of this is noise. Manufacturers are stock-building against tariff uncertainty, and the Hormuz disruption is inflating supplier delivery times and input costs. Discount for both and the demand signal still holds.

What doesn’t hold is capacity. Manufacturing employment has now contracted for 32 consecutive months. Input prices sit at 82, near their 2022 highs. Supplier deliveries are the slowest in four years, and customers’ inventories have read “too low” for 20 straight months. Every demand indicator points up while every capacity indicator points to strain. Even the stock-building is a tell, because you hoard inventory when you don’t trust the system to deliver.

That is the signal. This reindustrialization will not be rationed by demand. It will be rationed by capacity, and the constraint runs deeper than the shop floor. We’ve written about the skilled trades gap, but the same shortage exists at the design desk, where there simply aren’t enough mechanical engineers to translate demand into buildable products. Orders are arriving faster than the system can absorb them, and the system is not adding people. Either output per person rises structurally, or this recovery chokes on its own constraint.

We’re putting capital behind that view. We recently backed a company, not yet announced, building an AI-native design and engineering services firm aimed squarely at the secular shortage of mechanical engineers doing design work. If you need design work completed, send me an email, happy to introduce you. This investment reflects how we see the next decade of industrial value: it goes to whoever expands America’s ability to absorb its own demand.

Demand is no longer the question. Capacity is.

- Santosh, Madelyn, Madison, and the Dynamo Team

Moving Parts

Used Waymo Robotaxi Batteries Become Backup Storage for Power Grids

Waymo is channeling retired robotaxi batteries into grid-scale energy storage projects in California and Texas. The move reframes battery second life from a recycling problem into an infrastructure product, extracting value from cells that no longer meet automotive performance thresholds but still hold 70-80% of original capacity. For the broader EV fleet, this previews a model where vehicle batteries subsidize grid resilience and could change the economics of both autonomous vehicles and distributed energy storage.

LTL Shipments Get Heavier as US Manufacturing Gains Steam

Average LTL shipment weights are climbing at major carriers as manufacturers stock-build in the face of continued tariff uncertainty and freight migrates out of the truckload market. Heavier shipments boost revenue per shipment but strain network density, the metric that drives LTL profitability. For a newly independent FedEx Freight, this trend is a structural tailwind: asset-based LTL networks with terminal density capture disproportionate value when average weight per shipment rises.

White House Proposes Broad Tariffs of at Least 10% Citing Forced Labor

The Trump administration proposed blanket tariffs of at least 10% on imports from most major trading partners linked to forced labor, expanding enforcement well beyond the existing Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Dozens of countries and product categories are in scope. For importers already navigating Section 301 tariffs and UFLPA compliance, this adds another layer of cost and makes supply chain traceability tools legally required infrastructure rather than nice-to-haves.

Nickel Supply Deficit Projected Due to Indonesian Policy Shifts and Iran War

A structural nickel supply deficit is emerging as Indonesia’s shifting export policies and the Iran war disrupt the two largest swing factors in global supply. Indonesia accounts for roughly half of world nickel output, and its latest moves create real uncertainty about future volumes. The deficit matters beyond batteries: nickel is critical for stainless steel in industrial equipment, chemical processing, and energy infrastructure, sectors already facing input cost pressure from multiple directions.

The Hormuz Squeeze Is Redrawing the Global Oil Map

The ongoing disruption in the Strait of Hormuz is permanently rerouting global oil flows, with Gulf petrostates pouring billions into new pipelines and terminal infrastructure to bypass the chokepoint. This is no longer temporary wartime arbitrage. New pipeline commitments and refinery contracts are locking in alternative routes that will persist beyond any ceasefire. For logistics, the second-order effects are longer tanker voyages, tighter vessel availability, and higher bunker costs rippling across every mode.

Capital At Work

Red Metals Raises $10M Seed to Reshore American Copper Refining

Red Metals raised $10M in Seed funding to build a $70M copper refining facility in Charleston, SC. The startup developed a novel refining process to manufacture finished copper products domestically at a time when US copper demand from electrification and data centers far outstrips domestic supply. With copper prices near record highs and the supply gap widening, the bet is that onshore refining earns a premium that justifies the capex.

Layup Parts Raises $42M to Build the Amazon of Composite Manufacturing

Layup Parts, founded by an ex-Anduril engineer and backed by Palmer Luckey, raised $42M to build a marketplace and production network for composite parts. Composites are critical to aerospace and defense but the supply chain is fragmented across small job shops with no price transparency. Layup is applying the Xometry playbook to a material class growing 8% annually with no dominant platform.

Helion Raises $465M Series G to Build Fusion Power Plant for Microsoft

Helion Energy raised $465M at a $15.5B valuation to build a fusion power plant that will sell electricity to Microsoft under a signed power purchase agreement. Fusion has been perpetually five years away. The difference here is a contracted buyer willing to backstop construction risk, which turns a science project into an infrastructure finance problem. Delivery risk remains enormous, but the capital structure now looks more like a power plant than a lab.

FedEx Freight Begins Trading on NYSE After $89B Spinoff From FedEx

FedEx Freight began trading on the NYSE under ticker FDXF on June 1 after separating from FedEx Corp in the largest logistics spinoff in history. Valued at approximately $89B, the newly independent LTL carrier now answers to its own shareholders rather than subsidizing the parent’s parcel transformation. The separation lets investors price the LTL freight business on its own merits for the first time, and early trading suggests the market likes what it sees.

Bought Not Built

Triton Acquires Flender From Carlyle for €3B

Triton Partners agreed to acquire Flender, the world’s largest maker of wind turbine gearboxes, from Carlyle for approximately €3B. Flender is a pure-play bet on wind energy’s mechanical layer at a time when global installed capacity is accelerating. The deal prices the energy transition’s hardware backbone at a steep premium, signaling that PE sees the next decade of returns in components, not software.

WWEX and Auctane Complete Merger to Form ShipStation Global

WWEX, a freight and logistics platform, and Auctane, owner of ShipStation, completed their merger to create ShipStation Global. The combined entity controls shipping software used by hundreds of thousands of eCommerce merchants plus a brokerage network handling billions in freight spend. Consolidation in logistics SaaS is following the same script as fintech: aggregate the long tail, then monetize data and payments.

Voyager Acquires Astrobotic for $300M to Accelerate Lunar Program

Voyager Technologies agreed to acquire Astrobotic, the Pittsburgh-based lunar lander and rocket developer, for up to $300M in cash and stock. The deal gives Voyager the hardware to land on the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program, with a target of permanent American lunar presence by 2028. Astrobotic’s Pittsburgh HQ becomes Voyager’s lunar operations center, consolidating the commercial space infrastructure stack under one public company.

From The Portfolio

Token Transit Announces Partnership with Visa Acceptance Solutions

Token Transit, the mobile fare payments platform for public transit agencies, announced a partnership with Visa Acceptance Solutions to expand contactless payment acceptance across its network. Dynamo co-led Token Transit’s seed round.

Roles In The Industrial Renaissance

Lead AI/ML Engineer at Raft in McLean, VA

Commercial Manager - DFW at Manna in Dallas, TX

Ground Software Engineer at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO

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🎙 The Dynamo Show, goes deep with The New Industrialists, rejuvenating industry and commerce.

The Signal

It’s been about a month since our last issue but we’re back! You’ll notice that we’ve been updating our messaging and how we talk about ourselves across the internet to better reflect the breadth and scope of our focus. As we approach our 10th anniversary this summer, we felt it important to express this more clearly and continue our commitment to serving relentless founders across the physical economy.

Going forward, you’ll find that we are less about curation and more focused on sharing our opinion and perspectives on critical headlines from the week, themes we’re delving into, and emerging trends we identify as we engage with startups, incumbent corporates, and the investment community.

See you next week!

- Santosh, Madelyn, Madison, and the Dynamo Team

Moving Parts

China is Exporting its Factories Across the World
Chinese manufacturers aren’t just exporting goods anymore — they’re exporting production capacity. Companies like BYD and CATL are building factories across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Europe to circumvent tariffs and access local markets directly. The shift from “made in China” to “made by China, everywhere” restructures global supply chains in ways tariffs alone can’t contain and creates a new competitive dynamic for domestic manufacturers in every host country.

McKinsey: The US Needs $2T and a10x Ramp to Reshore Critical Products
McKinsey Global Institute’s 61-page “Ramping Up Manufacturing in America” report quantifies the reshoring challenge with a new “ramp-up factor”: for the most vulnerable product categories, domestic production would need to increase tenfold just to meet current demand. The total bill sits around $2T. The gap between policy ambition and industrial capacity has never been measured precisely, and the numbers suggest tariffs alone won’t close it. You need factories, trained workers, and supplier ecosystems that take years to build.

SpaceX Files for What Would be the Largest IPO in History, Targeting $1.8T
SpaceX published its prospectus May 20 and is now targeting a June 12 listing at roughly $1.8T, after trimming about $200B from its earlier target. At $1.75T on the low end, that’s 94x trailing sales, higher than the most expensive name in the S&P 500. The company is looking to raise around $75B. Whether the valuation holds or not, this IPO will test how much the public market is willing to pay for vertically integrated physical infrastructure (rockets, satellites, ground stations) wrapped in an AI narrative.

MP Materials Sues USA Rare Earth, Alleging Magnet Technology Theft
MP Materials filed suit against USA Rare Earth, claiming its rival stole proprietary grain boundary diffusion technology through a former employee. The IP at stake sits at the center of the permanent magnet supply chain, the critical link between rare earth mining and finished motors, generators, and defense systems. China controls over 80% of global magnet production. Both companies are racing to build domestic alternatives with federal support, and this lawsuit signals that the competition for a small pool of specialized talent and IP is getting litigious before it gets productive.

Pony AI Raises 2026 Robotaxi Fleet Target to 3.5K After Q1 Revenue Surge
Pony AI posted Q1 revenue growth of 395% YoY, with fare-charging revenue up 457%. The company lifted its year-end robotaxi fleet target from 3K to over 3.5K units. What’s notable isn’t just the growth rate but the unit economics signal: Pony is one of the first autonomous mobility companies where revenue growth is outpacing fleet expansion, suggesting per-vehicle yields are improving as the technology matures and routes densify.

SCOTUS Rules Freight Brokers can be Sued for Hiring Unsafe Carriers
In a unanimous decision authored by Justice Barrett, the Supreme Court held in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II that state-law negligence claims against freight brokers are not preempted by federal law. For decades, brokers used the FAAAA’s preemption clause as a blanket shield against liability for carrier selection. That defense is now gone. The ruling resolves a longstanding circuit split, and the fallout is already rippling: insurance costs are climbing, carrier vetting standards are tightening, and the $200B+ brokerage industry is recalibrating its risk models.

Capital At Work

LightTable Raises $22M Series A for Pre-Construction AI Quality Assurance
Innovation Endeavors led, with Blackhorn Ventures, DivcoWest Ventures, and 9Yards Capital participating. LightTable’s AI-native platform automates QA/QC for pre-construction documents, catching errors before they become change orders. The round signals growing investor conviction that construction’s biggest cost overruns happen in the planning phase, not on the jobsite, and that AI can compress review cycles that currently take weeks into hours.

Thea Energy Raises $100M to Build a Fusion Demonstration Reactor
U.S. Innovative Technology Fund led the oversubscribed round, with General Innovation Capital Partners and Linse Capital joining. The Princeton spinout’s approach uses arrays of smaller planar coil magnets instead of the massive tokamak-style superconductors most competitors rely on, a design choice that trades peak performance for manufacturability and modularity. Total raised: $130M. The funding will expand magnet manufacturing and begin construction of Eos, a “power plant relevant” demonstration device, starting in 2027.

SendCutSend Raises $110M and Hits Unicorn Status
Sequoia and Paradigm led, with Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison also investing. SendCutSend spent years as a bootstrapped, profitable on-demand manufacturing business before taking outside capital. The company hires operators from dollar stores and donut shops, trains them on CNC machines, and ships precision-cut parts in days. In a funding environment that celebrates software margins, this is a bet that the next great platform companies might actually make physical things.

Bought Not Built

DigitalBridge and ArcLight Merge to Create Digital Infrastructure Platform
DigitalBridge, the digital infrastructure-focused alternative asset manager, is merging with ArcLight Capital Partners, the energy infrastructure investor. ArcLight will operate as a distinct business within DigitalBridge, which is itself being acquired by SoftBank. The combination creates a single platform spanning data centers, fiber, towers, and power generation. The thesis: as AI workloads scale, owning the compute and the electrons that feed it will be more valuable than owning either alone.

Autodesk to Acquire MaintainX for $3.6B to Unify Design and Operations Workflows
Autodesk agreed to acquire MaintainX, the CMMS and frontline operations platform, for $3.6B in all cash. MaintainX manages maintenance workflows, work orders, asset inspections, and equipment monitoring for industrial operators worldwide, and expects to exceed $135M ARR in 2026 with 50%+ growth. Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost framed the deal as a step toward “converging digital and physical worlds” — connecting teams that design and build assets with those who operate and maintain them. The deal extends Autodesk beyond design and manufacturing software into day-to-day facility and asset operations, giving it access to high-frequency data on maintenance patterns and asset performance.

Parker-Hannifin to Acquire Circor Aerospace for $2.6B
Parker Hannifin, the global leader in motion and control technologies, agreed to acquire Circor International’s commercial and defense aerospace business from KKR for $2.55B in cash. Circor Aerospace brings flight-critical motion and flow control capabilities across current and next-gen platforms, with $270M in expected 2026 sales and 40%+ adjusted EBITDA margins. The business is 80% OEM, split evenly between commercial and defense, with double-digit sales growth driven by leading positions on programs like the F-35, Boeing 787, and Airbus A320neo. Parker expects the deal to be immediately accretive to EPS and margins.

From The Portfolio

Stord Raises $250M Series F at $3B Valuation, Launches Stord Labs
Stord, the commerce infrastructure platform, raised $250M led by Strike Capital at a $3B valuation. The company also launched Stord Labs, its applied AI research division. Dynamo co-led Stord’s $2.4M seed round.

Nextmv Acquired by FICO
FICO acquired Nextmv, the decision optimization platform for logistics and supply chain operations. Dynamo was an early investor.

Roles In The Renaissance

Director of Customer Success at Gatik in Mountain View, CA

Senior Integration Engineer at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO

Head of Customer Experience at Stord in Atlanta, GA

Commercial Manager at Manna in Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX

Founding SDR - UK/Nordics at Bonx in Paris, France

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🎙 Check out Dynamo’s podcast series, The Future of Supply Chain.

Weekly Commentary 💭

The Iran war has become a structural supply chain shock. Hormuz is still effectively closed, oil’s back above $100, and the ripple effects are hitting helium, shipping, and fertilizer. That’s colliding with the AI buildout, where chipflation, copper shortages, and local backlash are turning data centers into a permitting and politics problem. Add $300B in rerouted imports exposing tariff enforcement gaps, and the supply chain map keeps getting redrawn in real time.

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We Are Dynamo,

Madelyn, Madison and the rest of the Dynamo team

Note: please add “dynamo@substack.com” to your email client, so you don’t miss future issues due to aggressive spam filters.

Make, Move, and Monetize 📦

⭐ Supply Chain Cracks Constrain AI Boom. The AI boom is being constrained by fragile physical supply chains, as conflict around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz threatens key inputs for chips, data centers, and power. Moody’s warns that disruptions to Qatari helium, Israeli bromine, and LNG flows could pressure the infrastructure behind roughly $650B in US AI spending, while BlackRock says surging data center and defense demand is driving “chipflation,” with some component prices up 17x over the past year. That makes AI infrastructure a much broader resilience problem. The winners will not just be those with the best models or the most capital, but those who can secure the energy, materials, logistics, and supplier relationships needed to keep scaling. Completely unrelated, How Dangerous Trucking Companies Escape Their Past, Change Names and Get Back on the Road.

Air War in Iran Gives Way to Crippling Stalemate in Hormuz. The Iran conflict has shifted into a dangerous “no war, no peace” phase, with the cease-fire holding on land but the Strait of Hormuz still effectively closed amid ship attacks, US interdictions, and dueling blockades. Oil has pushed back above $100, more than 10M barrels a day of energy flows remain trapped, and the disruption is spreading into helium, fertilizer, aluminum, aviation fuel, and Gulf-region infrastructure. This is no longer just an oil-price shock; it is a global supply-chain stress test. A prolonged Hormuz stalemate could force demand destruction, higher inflation, and tougher central-bank tradeoffs while hitting Asia, Europe, and Gulf diversification plans hardest. Also, Both Iran and US Blockade Strait of Hormuz and Iran Offers US Deal to Reopen Strait But Postpone Nuclear Talks.

Why the US Is Pushing to Rebuild Its Copper Supply. US copper production has stagnated for decades just as AI-driven electricity demand is sending consumption soaring across data centers and power grids, leaving the country increasingly dependent on imports. Projects like Rio Tinto’s Resolution mine in Arizona show the scale of untapped domestic reserves, but regulatory delays and rising costs continue to slow new supply, while China dominates global processing. Copper is no longer just a commodity play, it’s a strategic chokepoint for the AI buildout, and the widening gap between US demand and domestic supply creates both acute risk for anyone building power-hungry infrastructure and a generational opportunity for those positioned in mining, processing, or alternatives. For more, check out Copper’s Quiet Supply Squeeze is Reshaping the Investment Case.

FedEx, UPS and DHL Detail Tariff Refund Approach for Customers. FedEx, UPS, and DHL are moving to reclaim refunds for invalidated IEEPA tariffs and return the money to the customers or payors who originally covered the duties. The process will depend on who acted as importer of record and customs broker, but carriers are largely positioning themselves as the intermediary with Customs and Border Protection, with refunds expected only after CBP releases the funds. For executives and operators, this is a cash-recovery and compliance issue hiding inside logistics workflows. The bigger signal is that tariff reversals can create meaningful administrative complexity across parcel networks, making documentation, broker relationships, and landed-cost visibility increasingly important.

Oil Traders Say Billion-Barrel Hole Will Linger Long After War. The Iran war has created a structural oil shock that traders say will persist even after the Strait of Hormuz reopens, with a roughly billion-barrel supply hole, disrupted tanker positioning, and damaged or slow-to-restart production capacity. Brent has eased from post-war highs, but major traders warn the market is underpricing how long it will take to realign crude flows, rebuild inventories, and restore confidence in shipping through the Gulf. This is a reminder that geopolitical disruptions do not end when headlines or peace talks begin to improve. Energy prices, freight costs, and inventory strategy could remain volatile for months, with the risk that oil becomes a broader recessionary pressure if flows do not normalize quickly. Related, Goldman Sachs Raises Oil Price Forecasts on Tight Supply.

Ocean Shipping Surcharges Spurred by Iran War Weigh on Contract Talks. Ocean shipping costs are rising as the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz push up fuel prices, adding tension to annual contract negotiations between shippers and carriers. Major carriers including MSC, CMA CGM, ONE, and Maersk have begun implementing fuel surcharges and higher rates across trade lanes, while trucking, parcel, and air freight costs are also climbing as fuel pressure spreads across transport modes. The bigger issue is that supply chain volatility is becoming embedded into pricing, not treated as a temporary disruption. Companies that depend on global logistics will need to negotiate more carefully around surcharge terms, cost pass-throughs, and routing flexibility as geopolitical shocks increasingly show up directly in margins. Completely unrelated, Uber Eats Launches Retail Returns.

Rerouted US Imports Avoiding Trump Tariffs Top $300B. Roughly $300B of goods subject to Trump-era tariffs are reportedly reaching the US each year through rerouting channels in Southeast Asia and Mexico, exposing major enforcement gaps in rules-of-origin and USMCA compliance. Altana’s shipment-level analysis suggests suspicious transactions surged 76% in the first 10 months of 2025, with the US potentially losing about $40B in tariff revenue from goods effectively “laundered” through preferential trade routes. This points to a coming crackdown on supply-chain arbitrage. Tariff strategy is shifting from rate exposure to traceability, making facility-level provenance, documentation, and USMCA rules-of-origin compliance central to trade risk. Also, Tariffs Raised Consumers’ Prices, but the Refunds Go Only to Businesses and Inside the Business Most Exposed to Trump’s Tariff War.

Data Centers are Expensive, Unpopular — and Could Be a Tipping Point in the Midterms. Data centers have moved from economic development trophy projects to political flashpoints, as AI-driven demand brings massive capital investment but also higher power needs, environmental strain, and local opposition. Communities from Virginia to Louisiana to Tennessee are increasingly treating new data center projects as affordability and quality-of-life issues, putting pressure on elected officials ahead of the midterms. Thus, the data center buildout is no longer just a capacity race; it is becoming a permitting, power, and politics problem. The companies that win may be the ones that can secure energy, manage local backlash, and make the economic case before opposition hardens. For more, check out New Gas-Powered Data Centers Could Emit More Greenhouse Gases Than Entire Nations.

Werner Enterprises Doubling Intermodal Trailers in Mexico. Werner Enterprises is doubling its Mexico intermodal container fleet to 800 units by year-end, expanding first in Monterrey and Silao before adding Mexico City later in 2026. The move follows steady demand and strong intermodal growth, with Werner leaning into cross-border rail as shippers look for lower-cost, more reliable alternatives amid volatile diesel prices and tightening truck capacity. This is another sign that Mexico-linked supply chains are becoming a durable growth lane, not just a nearshoring headline. Asset-based cross-border capacity, customs expertise, and visibility tech are becoming key differentiators as freight networks reorient around North America.

‘Smart’ Glasses Are Back: First, for the Warehouse. Then, Consumers. Smart glasses are finding their real second act in warehouses, where hands-free scanning, picking, maintenance, and inventory workflows matter more than consumer aesthetics. Newer ruggedized models from companies like Vuzix combine vision and voice with better battery life, low-light video, multi-barcode scanning, and AI that can read live camera feeds, purchase orders, and handwritten addresses. That makes the category less about a flashy consumer comeback and more about a practical productivity layer for frontline logistics work. The warehouse is becoming the proving ground for wearable AI before the technology goes mainstream with consumers. The near-term opportunity is improving speed, accuracy, safety, and training through tools that fit into existing workflows, especially as labor remains tight and fulfillment expectations keep rising. Related, Ex-OnePlus Engineers Launch Smart Glasses With Unclear Pricing.

Request for Startups 📢

Dynamo is always looking to meet startups that are helping to make, move, and monetize goods. Check out our latest request for startups below!

Chemicals, aerospace, and electrical distribution run on messy catalogs and tribal knowledge that generic software can’t decode. The opportunity: AI-native platforms that speak the domain, handle compliance, and plug into existing ERPs, starting with quick wins like PO processing, then becoming the system of record for industrial commerce. Read more here.

The Dynamo Show 🎙️

Check out our podcast series that’s been running since 2018. On each episode of The Dynamo Show, we sit down with a different entrepreneur, investor, or industry veteran to discuss innovation, technology, and the most exciting opportunities in supply chain as we build the future of the industry together.

Fundraises and M&A 💸

Cloneable Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding. Cloneable develops an agentic AI platform that captures expert knowledge and automates complex industrial workflows across infrastructure sectors. The company will use the funds to expand deployment across industries including utilities, energy, construction, rail, mining, agriculture, and manufacturing. The round was led by Congruent Ventures, with participation from First In, Overline, St. Elmo Venture Capital, and Bull City Venture Partners.

Bubble Robotics Raises $5M in Pre-Seed Funding. Bubble Robotics develops autonomous underwater robots and docking systems that enable continuous, crewless inspection and monitoring of offshore and subsea environments. The company will use the funds to deploy its first commercial systems and scale its robotics-as-a-service platform across offshore wind, maritime security, and subsea infrastructure markets. The round was co-led by Episode 1 Ventures, Asterion Ventures, and Norrsken Evolve.

Fasal Bio Raises €7M in Funding. Fasal Bio develops wood-based, renewable composite materials through its Naturion™ platform, designed as a drop-in replacement for conventional plastics in industrial manufacturing. The company will use the funds to expand production capacity, strengthen its commercial and R&D teams, and support global scale-up and new product development. The round was led by BlackPeak Capital.

Crewline AI Raises $7.1M in Seed Funding. Crewline AI develops retrofit autonomy kits that enable construction rollers to operate as self-driving machines for soil compaction on job sites. The company will use the funds to advance its autonomy stack and scale deployments across construction customers. The round was led by Initialized Capital and Nebular.

A&K Robotics Raises CAD $8M in Series A Funding. A&K Robotics develops autonomous mobility robots for airports, including self-driving vehicles designed to transport passengers through complex indoor environments. The company will use the funds to transition from pilot programs to permanent deployments, expand production capacity, and accelerate adoption across major airport networks. The round was led by BDC’s Industrial Innovation Venture Fund and Vantage Futures.

Antioch Raises $8.5M in Seed Funding. Antioch builds high-fidelity, cloud-based simulation tools for robotics and autonomous system developers. The company will use the funds to expand operations and development efforts. The round was led by A* and Category Ventures, with participation from MaC Venture Capital, Abstract, Box Group, and Icehouse Ventures.

Smart Robotics Raises €10M in Series A Funding. Smart Robotics develops AI-powered robotic pick-and-place solutions for intralogistics, built on a proprietary control layer that enables handling of complex, high-variability warehouse operations. The company will use the funds to accelerate its European expansion and further develop its AI-driven platform. The round was led by Rotterdamse Havendraken, with participation from Innovation Industries and Ernij Next.

Humble Raises $24M in Seed Funding. Humble develops fully autonomous, cabless electric haulers designed for cost-efficient freight transportation across logistics environments such as warehouses, railyards, and seaports. The company will use the funds to advance vehicle development, expand its autonomy stack, launch pilot deployments, and support early manufacturing. The round was led by Eclipse, with participation from Energy Impact Partners and others.

Cloudsmith Raises $72M in Series C Funding. Cloudsmith provides a secure artifact management platform that enables enterprises to manage and protect software supply chains, including packages, containers, and ML models. The company will use the funds to accelerate product development and expand its go-to-market efforts. The round was led by TCV, with participation from Insight Partners and other existing investors.

Pudu Robotics Raises $150M in Funding. Pudu Robotics develops service and industrial robots, including delivery, cleaning, and logistics systems powered by embodied AI technologies. The company will use the funds to advance embodied AI development, expand its product portfolio, scale manufacturing capacity, and grow its global market presence. The investors in the round were not disclosed.

Descartes Acquires Idelic for $28M. Idelic provides an AI-powered driver safety and performance management platform that integrates training, monitoring, and predictive risk analytics for fleet operators. The acquisition will be used to enhance Descartes’ Global Logistics Network with advanced safety intelligence and expand its fleet performance management capabilities. The transaction was completed by Descartes Systems Group for approximately $28M in upfront consideration, with additional performance-based earn-out potential.

Who’s Hiring? 👩‍💻

Be sure to check out the Dynamo website for more job opportunities at our portfolio companies!

Sales Development Representative at Ceto in London, England.

People Partner at Manna in Dublin, Ireland (Remote).

Overnight Area Manager I at Stord in Dallax, TX.

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Weekly Commentary 💭

Geopolitics is running the show this week. The Iran war sent sulfuric acid from $150 to $800 a ton and pushed supply chain stress to a three-year high, Trump is blockading Hormuz, and $127B in tariff refunds finally start flowing next week. Meanwhile, TSMC’s $165B Arizona buildout keeps redrawing the chip map, and logistics layoffs are piling up as contract freight quietly unwinds.

🥰 Love reading the Dispatch? Make sure you forward it to anyone looking to stay up to date with all things supply chain and mobility.

We Are Dynamo,

Madelyn, Madison and the rest of the Dynamo team

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Make, Move, and Monetize 📦

⭐ An Acid Test for the Global Economy. The Iran war is exposing a fragile, underappreciated chokepoint in the global economy: sulfuric acid, a byproduct of oil, gas, and copper refining that is essential for fertilizer, semiconductors, and copper processing. With exports through the Strait of Hormuz throttled and China suspending acid exports, prices have surged from roughly $150 a ton to as high as $800 in local spot markets, turning a niche chemical into a flashpoint for inflation, industrial disruption, and food-supply risk. The bigger takeaway is that the energy transition still runs through deeply fossil-fuel-dependent supply chains, and when those chains break, the consequences spread far beyond energy into growth, prices, and geopolitical leverage. Completely unrelated, From Tariffs to Iran War, Geopolitics are Upending Packaging Supply Chains.

Trump Says US Will Begin Blockade of Ships To and From Hormuz. Trump said the US would immediately begin blockading ships entering or leaving the Strait of Hormuz after peace talks with Iran collapsed, escalating a six-week conflict and putting the world’s most important energy chokepoint at the center of the crisis. The move could effectively cut off Iran’s oil exports while further straining global crude markets, with prices and physical cargo premiums already spiking as traders scramble for supply; notably, even key allies like the UK are distancing themselves from direct participation. The broader takeaway is that this is no longer just a regional military story—it is becoming a global market-and-operating-cost story. Any prolonged disruption here is likely to ripple quickly through energy prices, shipping costs, inflation exposure, and risk sentiment across sectors. Also, Strait of Hormuz Closed Again, Iran Says, as Ships Attacked and Iran Closes Strait of Hormuz Again; 2 Ships Report Attacks While Trying to Cross.

Philippines, US to Build Industrial Hub to Strengthen Supply Chain Security. The US and Philippines are moving to build a 4,000-acre industrial hub in New Clark City as part of Pax Silica, Washington’s broader push to secure AI, semiconductor, critical minerals, and advanced manufacturing supply chains with allied partners. The project would sit inside the Luzon Economic Corridor and is meant to become a platform for allied manufacturing, deepening trilateral economic coordination among Manila, Washington, and Tokyo. It also underscores how supply chain strategy is becoming inseparable from geopolitics, with the Philippines taking on a bigger role in both regional manufacturing and the US effort to reduce dependence on rival nations. The next phase of supply chain competition is not just about reshoring, but about building trusted production corridors across strategic allies. Thus, the opportunity is in the ecosystems that form around these hubs: semiconductors, electronics, logistics, infrastructure, and data-related capacity. For more, check out Fact Sheet: US and Philippines Plan the Launch of Historic 4,000 Acre Economic Security Zone to Shore Up Supply Chains.

Borderlands Mexico: Truck Exports to US Fall in March. Mexico’s heavy-duty truck exports to the US fell again in March, reinforcing how dependent the country’s commercial vehicle sector remains on a soft North American freight market. Production and exports were both down year over year, though the sequential pickup from January and February hints that conditions may be finding a floor after a steep pullback. With more than 90% of shipments still headed north, the sector remains tightly linked to US fleet sentiment and replacement demand. This is an early read on whether cross-border industrial activity is actually recovering or just bouncing along the bottom. It also matters for anyone tracking trucking demand, manufacturing exposure, and where North American freight spending may move next.

Logistics Layoffs Top 800 as Contracts Unwind Across Trucking, Warehousing. Layoffs across US trucking, warehousing, and last-mile topped 800 in recent weeks, driven less by outright collapse than by contract churn: customers bringing operations in-house, warehouse contracts not being renewed, and regional networks being consolidated. The cuts span major operators including Saddle Creek, Ryder, Day & Ross, Sentinel, and Legacy Supply Chain, reinforcing that dedicated and warehouse-linked freight remains weaker than headline spot-market stabilization might suggest. In this downcycle, capacity is leaving the market not only through bankruptcies, but through slower, more fragmented workforce reductions tied directly to shipper decisions. This matters because it’s a ground-level signal that contract freight is still under real pressure, even as parts of the broader freight market appear to be finding a floor. It’s a reminder that demand visibility, customer stickiness, and exposure to outsourced versus in-house logistics models now matter as much as volume itself. Related, Logistics Company Cutting Jobs Nationwide Plans 168 Layoffs Near Houston.

US Weighs Tougher Auto Import Rules to Accelerate Reshoring. The White House is exploring a tougher rewrite of North American auto trade rules that would require more US-made content in imported vehicles and reduce automakers’ ability to use USMCA carveouts to keep tariffs down. That would raise cross-border costs across the US-Mexico-Canada auto corridor at a moment when Washington is frustrated that earlier tariffs and investment pledges still have not produced a meaningful reshoring boom, especially in lower-priced vehicles. The broader implication is that auto supply chains built for continental efficiency may now need to be rebuilt for political durability, with higher compliance costs, sourcing shifts, and new pressure on margins across OEMs and suppliers. Completely unrelated, Cost-Hit Ocean Carriers Roll Out Series of Rate Increases, Fuel Surcharges.

Process to Refund Tariffs to Begin Next Week. The Trump administration is set to begin accepting refund claims next week for tariffs the Supreme Court ruled were collected illegally, with the first phase covering roughly $127B of the $166B at issue. After months of delays tied to the sheer scale of affected imports, the trade court says Customs is finally ready to start processing repayments with interest on April 20, though further appeals remain possible. This shifts the tariff fight from a legal debate into a real cash-flow event for importers. For businesses, investors, and operators, that means liquidity could improve for some companies soon, but the uncertainty around timing, claims processing, and potential appeals still matters. Also, Liberation Day, a Year Later: Unpredictability Still Prevails and Trump Administration to Begin Refunding $166B in Tariffs.

Middle East War Pushes Supply Chain Pressures to Three-Year High. Supply chain stress spiked in March to its highest level since January 2023, as the US and Israel’s war with Iran sent oil prices, freight costs, and maritime disruption sharply higher, especially through the Strait of Hormuz. Companies responded by stockpiling at the fastest pace in three years, while shortages of oil-linked materials like polymers, PVC, and rubber worsened even as manufacturers pulled back on raw-material purchases. Asia saw the biggest jump in pressure, with North America and Europe also moving back into clear stress territory, though GEP says the disruption has not yet become a broader global growth shock. The data shows geopolitical conflict is now feeding directly into operating costs, inventory behavior, and materials availability across regions. For executives, investors, and founders, the signal is clear: resilience in critical inputs and logistics matters more than broad-based stockpiling, which could simply lock in higher costs. For more, check out Middle East Conflict Chokes End of Supply Chain as Lights Go Out in the Pacific

Average March Volume Was Actually Good News for the Port of Los Angeles. March was softer year over year for the Port of Los Angeles, but not weak in context. The port handled 752,520 TEUs, down 3%, while first-quarter volumes of 2.39M TEUs stayed in line with the five-year trend after last year’s tariff-driven import surge distorted comparisons. Imports slipped 1%, exports rose 7% to their highest level since May 2024, and the broader message from Gene Seroka was that steady throughput matters more than headline growth as tariffs, inflation, and Middle East-driven fuel costs cloud demand. The real signal is that normalizing volumes are being framed as a win because the industry is already operating in a lower-visibility environment where resilience and consistency, not breakout growth, are the key indicators to watch.

TSMC’s US $165B US Expansion Reshapes Global Chip Supply. TSMC’s $165B Arizona expansion is becoming one of the clearest signs that global chip production is being redrawn around resilience, proximity, and geopolitics—not just cost. The company is ramping US capacity as AI demand surges, posting 35% revenue growth, while also navigating fresh supply chain risk from helium disruption tied to the Strait of Hormuz. With six fabs, advanced packaging, and R&D planned in Arizona, TSMC is moving more of the semiconductor value chain closer to major US customers like Apple and Nvidia. This matters because the semiconductor supply chain is no longer just globalizing—it is regionalizing around trusted manufacturing bases and strategic materials access. For executives, investors, and founders, the takeaway is that future advantage will come from securing position not only in chip capacity, but in the surrounding ecosystem: packaging, inputs, infrastructure, and industrial policy. Related, TSMC Intends to Expand Its Investment in the United States to US $165B to Power the Future of AI.

Request for Startups 📢

Dynamo is always looking to meet startups that are helping to make, move, and monetize goods. Check out our latest request for startups below!

Composable WMS/OMS: Warehouse and order management systems have always been painful to implement because every fulfillment operation runs differently, but underneath, they share the same core data models. We think it’s time for a composable WMS/OMS that lets operators configure and extend the system themselves, no developer required. Read more here.

The Future of Supply Chain 🎙️

Check out our podcast series that’s been running since 2018. On each episode of the Future of Supply Chain, we sit down with a different entrepreneur, investor, or industry veteran to discuss innovation, technology, and the most exciting opportunities in supply chain as we build the future of the industry together.

Fundraises and M&A 💸

Traza Raises $2.1M in Pre-Seed Funding. Traza develops an AI-native platform that deploys autonomous agents to automate procurement and supply chain operations for large industrial enterprises. The company will use the funds to accelerate AI agent development, expand its engineering team, and deepen co-design partnerships with enterprise customers in the United States. The round was led by Base10 Partners with participation from K Fund, a16z scouts, Clara Ventures, Masia Ventures, and angel investors.

Fieldwork Robotics Raises £3M in Funding. Fieldwork Robotics develops autonomous harvesting robots for soft fruit growers, including raspberry-picking systems designed to reduce manual labor in agriculture. The company will use the funding to accelerate farm adoption of its robots, support commercial deployments and trials in the UK, and advance its harvesting-as-a-service model toward broader multi-robot fleet rollouts. The round included a £2.2M investment led by Elbow Beach, with follow-on participation from Elbow Beach alongside £1.6M in grant funding, including support from Innovate UK through the Farm ADOPT program.

Antioch Raises $8.5M in Seed Funding. Antioch develops simulation software that enables robotics companies to train and test autonomous systems in high-fidelity virtual environments. The company will use the funding to advance its simulation platform, improve physics realism to close the sim-to-real gap, and expand its domain-specific tooling for robot developers. The round was led by A* and Category Ventures, with participation from MaC Venture Capital, Abstract, Box Group, Icehouse Ventures, and angel investor Adrian Macneil.

Critical Loop Raises $26M in Series A Funding. Critical Loop develops integrated power infrastructure platforms combining microgrids, battery storage, and software-defined controls to accelerate grid interconnections for industrial customers. The company will use the funding to expand deployment of its systems, scale operations beyond California, and address grid bottlenecks by reducing time to power for new projects. The round was led by Conifer Infrastructure Partners and Hanover, with participation from Better Ventures, Climate Capital, Adapt Nation Capital, and Cyrus Ventures.

Loop Raises $95M in Series C Funding. Loop provides an AI-powered supply chain platform that structures unstructured data and delivers predictive and prescriptive insights to optimize operations. The company will use the funds primarily to hire engineering talent and expand data integrations across enterprise systems, suppliers, and logistics networks. The round was led by Valor Equity Partners and the Valor Atreides AI Fund, with participation from 8VC, Founders Fund, Index Ventures, and J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners.

Glydways Raises $170M in Series C Funding. Glydways develops autonomous vehicle-based urban mobility systems that operate on dedicated guideways to deliver high-capacity, on-demand transportation networks. The company will use the funds to support geographic expansion with pilot deployments in the UAE, New York City, and Atlanta, accelerate next-generation vehicle production, and scale its global team and infrastructure. The round was co-led by Suzuki Motor Corporation, ACS Group, and Khosla Ventures, with participation from Mitsui Chemicals, Gates Frontier, and Obayashi Corporation.

Who’s Hiring? 👩‍💻

Be sure to check out the Dynamo website for more job opportunities at our portfolio companies!

Flight Software Engineer at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO.

Senior Product Designer at Skydropx in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Remote).

Senior Software Engineer, Unity at Gatik in Mountain View, CA.

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🗞️ If you were forwarded this and found it interesting, please sign up.

🎙 Check out Dynamo’s podcast series, The Future of Supply Chain.

Weekly Commentary 💭

Dynamo’s hallmark event, Hub + Spoke, is just weeks away, and we’ve saved a few seats for the right people. Hub + Spoke is an invitation-only gathering of enterprise leaders, investors, and innovators shaping the future of making, moving, and monetizing goods. We’ve opened five additional spots for startups, and we want your help filling them. Know someone who belongs in the room? Nominate them here before Friday, April 17.

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Madelyn, Madison and the rest of the Dynamo team

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Make, Move, and Monetize 📦

⭐ How Major US shippers Are Quietly Raising Rates to Cover Costs Amid Iran War. Shipping companies are quietly pushing Iran-war-driven fuel and logistics costs onto customers through a mix of explicit surcharges and harder-to-spot changes like higher free-shipping thresholds, fewer discounts, and slower delivery. Amazon is adding a 3.5% surcharge for sellers using its fulfillment network, USPS is rolling out its first-ever fuel surcharge on packages, and UPS, FedEx, and Maersk have all raised fuel-related fees as jet fuel prices have surged since the conflict began. Geopolitical shocks are now flowing through everyday commerce faster and more visibly, creating margin pressure across retail, logistics, and e-commerce ecosystems that operators and investors need to watch closely. Completely unrelated, Amazon and US Postal Service Reach Delivery Deal.

What’s Happening in the Strait of Hormuz Since the Cease-Fire? Iran is effectively controlling access through the Strait of Hormuz even after the cease-fire, limiting crossings to a trickle and charging tolls of up to $2M per ship while more than 1,000 vessels remain stranded or delayed. The article’s core point is that the cease-fire has not restored normal shipping. Traffic is still far below peacetime levels, insurers remain cautious, and energy executives are treating the waterway as restricted rather than reopened. That means the real risk is no longer just open conflict but Iran’s ability to weaponize chokepoints, keeping oil, LNG, and broader supply chains under pressure even in a nominal de-escalation. Also, US Blockades Hormuz: Are Supply Chains at Breaking Point? and How Many Ships Are Crossing the Strait of Hormuz?

How Trump’s White House Plans to Spend nearly $70B on ‘Maritime Dominance’. Trump’s White House has proposed nearly $70B in maritime spending for fiscal 2027, centered on a record $65.8B naval shipbuilding push but also extending to commercial-standard tankers and ro-ros, port infrastructure, shipyard grants, workforce development, and fleet upgrades across agencies. The plan positions maritime capacity as a national industrial strategy, with $1.5B earmarked for MARAD programs including ports, the Merchant Marine Academy, and shipyard modernization, alongside additional vessel funding for NOAA, the National Park Service, and the National Science Foundation. This is a major signal that Washington is treating shipbuilding and shipping as strategic infrastructure again, with potentially meaningful downstream implications for yards, Jones Act operators, maritime labor, ports, and suppliers, assuming Congress backs the spending and execution improves. For more, check out Trump’s FY 2027 Budget Doubles Down on Dredging and America’s Maritime Future.

Delta Hits Brakes on Growth Plans as Fuel Spike Reshapes Airline Economics. Delta is pulling back all planned Q2 capacity growth and withholding an updated full-year outlook after the Iran war sent jet fuel prices sharply higher, adding more than $2B to its June-quarter costs and pushing profit guidance below Wall Street expectations. CEO Ed Bastian said the spike will accelerate an industry shakeout, with carriers cutting lower-margin flying, raising fees, and leaning on still-resilient premium demand to offset higher costs; Delta expects to recover roughly 40% to 50% of the fuel hit and gets an extra cushion from its refinery business. The takeaway is that geopolitics is now flowing straight into operating models: higher-for-longer input costs will separate businesses with pricing power, balance-sheet flexibility, and structural hedges from those that were relying on growth alone.

Supply Chain AI Spending To Surge From $2B To $53B By 2030. Supply chain software is moving from AI copilots to agentic systems, with Gartner projecting spend to jump from under $2B in 2025 to $53B by 2030 as companies expand from narrow task automation into multi-agent workflow orchestration. The bigger shift is not just budget growth but procurement behavior. AI assistants are becoming table stakes in SCM software selection, while agentic capabilities are quickly turning into a competitive differentiator for vendors. Supply chain AI is crossing from experimentation into platform strategy, but rea-scaled adoption will depend less on model hype and more on data quality, operational maturity, and workforce readiness. Related, AI in Practice: How Intelligent Supply Chain Execution Redefines Logistics.

Industrial Supply Chain Update: The Shock Is Spreading Beyond Metals. Supply chain disruption has spread beyond metals to downstream inputs such as polymers, semiconductors, and aluminum, making April’s outlook materially worse for manufacturers. The piece argues this is no longer just a pricing story. Polymer prices have spiked, aluminum supply has been knocked offline in ways that may take years to recover, and chip scarcity is reappearing in selective but critical categories like memory and AI-competing capacity. The real implication is that procurement risk is now buried deeper in the bill of materials, so companies that map sub-tier exposure, secure alternate supply early, and prioritize availability over benchmark pricing will be much better positioned than those waiting for obvious supplier increases. Completely unrelated, Borderlands Mexico: Tariff Pressure Shows Up in Customs Data Across North America.

Trump Floats Seizing Iran Oil as He Weighs Chinese Leverage Play. Trump is reportedly floating US control of Iran’s oil sector not just as wartime theater, but as a way to gain energy leverage over China, a longtime buyer of discounted Iranian crude. The idea reflects his broader view that controlling constrained commodity flows creates geopolitical power, even as aides say there are no formal plans. The legal, operational, and political costs would be steep. China, however, may be less vulnerable than the White House expects, given its reserves, diversified supply, and greater tolerance for economic pain. Energy is becoming a more explicit tool in US-China bargaining, tying conflict and sanctions more tightly to trade strategy and raising the risk of sustained volatility across oil, shipping, industrial inputs, and other businesses exposed to geopolitical chokepoints. Also, Oil Prices Spike After Failed US-Iran Peace Talks and Trump’s Blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and It’s Not Just Oil. War in Iran Will Hike the Price of Nearly Everything You Buy.

Liberation Day Tariffs Prolong Supply Chain Strain. Liberation Day tariffs are still scrambling supply chains a year later. Businesses have paid an estimated $140B in duties later ruled unlawful, but delayed refunds are trapping working capital and forcing repeated changes to pricing, inventory, and sourcing strategy. That uncertainty is spilling into freight networks too, as smaller and less predictable orders, lane shifts, and stop-start import behavior make it harder for shippers and carriers to plan capacity, control costs, and maintain service reliability. The bigger takeaway is that trade policy volatility is no longer a one-off compliance issue, but a core operating risk that leaders now need to build into supplier strategy, network design, and cash planning from the start. For more, check out Trade Court Wrestles with Trump’s Replacement Tariffs.

Texas Cargo Theft: How $470k in Vehicles Almost Escaped. Texas authorities intercepted two semis carrying roughly $470,000 in stolen vehicles believed to be headed to Honduras. These cases usually do not start with a dramatic heist; they start with a routine-looking handoff, credible paperwork, and a carrier that appears legitimate, allowing bad actors to gain control long before anyone realizes the shipment has been redirected. The use of multiple trucks and a cross-border route points to organized exploitation of weak verification points, not random theft. Most cargo theft is really an identity and process control failure upstream, not a security failure at pickup. For operators, brokers, and shippers, that raises the stakes on vetting counterparties before a load ever moves, because once freight is moving toward a border, the odds of recovery fall fast.

From Tariffs to Iran War, Geopolitics Are Upending Packaging Supply Chains. Packaging supply chains are getting squeezed from both sides. Lingering tariff instability is still inflating costs and limiting sourcing flexibility, while the Iran war is pushing up oil, plastics, and freight prices on top of that. Brands and suppliers have made incremental moves like adding backup vendors, stockpiling, and exploring refill or lighter-weight formats, but most have not fundamentally rebuilt their networks because domestic alternatives are limited, switching materials is slow, and full reshoring is often unrealistic. The real implication is that packaging has become a frontline geopolitical risk issue, which makes supplier redundancy, better visibility, and tighter customer-supplier collaboration a competitive advantage rather than just an operational nice-to-have. Related, Packaging Industry Adapts to Prolonged Disruption.

The Future of Supply Chain 🎙️

Check out our podcast series that’s been running since 2018. On each episode of the Future of Supply Chain, we sit down with a different entrepreneur, investor, or industry veteran to discuss innovation, technology, and the most exciting opportunities in supply chain as we build the future of the industry together.

Fundraises and M&A 💸

Edmund Raises €2.5M in Seed Funding. Edmund develops an AI-powered industrial troubleshooting platform that integrates machine data, PLC systems, and technical documentation to accelerate diagnostics on the factory floor. The company will use the funding to expand its team, scale across European and US markets, and further develop its AI-driven diagnostics platform. The round was led by FORWARD.one, with participation from University2Ventures and Tensor Ventures.

Conxai Raises €5M in Funding. Conxai develops a vertical AI platform for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sector that automates project workflows using multimodal data from sources such as images, sensors, documents, and CAD files. The company will use the funding to advance its agentic AI platform, expand product capabilities like real-time site visibility and workflow automation, and scale adoption across construction projects. The round includes backing from Earlybird, Pi Labs, noa, Argonautic Ventures, and Zacua Ventures.

Kimia Raises $7M in Seed Funding. Kimia develops an AI-powered knowledge platform that aggregates and structures scientific literature, internal documentation, and supplier data to deliver traceable, queryable insights for commercial and technical teams in the chemical industry. The company will use the funds to onboard new enterprise customers, enhance platform capabilities, and expand its global go-to-market efforts. The round was led by Airtree Ventures, with participation from Blackbird Ventures and Skip Capital.

Foundry Robotics Raises $19M in Seed Funding. Foundry Robotics is developing AI-first, assembly-focused robotic systems for contract manufacturing aimed at improving efficiency and adaptability in factory operations. The company will use the funding to expand its robotics-driven manufacturing platform and scale its engineering and production capabilities. The round includes investors such as Khosla Ventures, Hanabi Capital, Red Glass Ventures, Zero Shot Fund, and other backers.

Hybron Raises $25M in Seed Funding. Hybron develops advanced carbon fiber composite manufacturing technology that produces high-performance components significantly faster and at lower cost than traditional processes. The company will use the funds to scale manufacturing capacity, grow its team, and support an expanding portfolio of aerospace and defense programs. The round was led by Marque Ventures, with participation from First In, DTX Ventures, Veteran Ventures Capital, Ultratech, Bravo Victor Venture Capital, Gaingels, ZEA, American Center for Manufacturing Innovation, and angel investor Matt Ocko.

Manna Raises $50M in Series B Funding. Dynamo portfolio company, Manna, develops an autonomous aerial drone delivery platform for last-mile logistics, enabling rapid delivery of goods directly to consumers’ homes. The company will use the funds to expand to 40 operational bases across the United States and Europe, scale its delivery network, and support hiring across engineering, operations, and regulatory functions. The round includes investors ARK Invest, ISIF, and Schooner Capital, with continued backing from Coca-Cola HBC, Molten Ventures, and Enterprise Ireland.

American Ocean Minerals Corporation to Merge with Odyssey Marine Exploration in $1B Transaction. American Ocean Minerals Corporation and Odyssey Marine Exploration are combining to create a US-controlled platform focused on deep-sea exploration, harvesting, and processing of polymetallic nodules and critical minerals. The transaction includes over $230M in equity capital, which will be used to advance exploration programs, develop harvesting and processing infrastructure, and support supply chain independence initiatives. The financing comprises a private placement of more than $150M and a $75M pre-public round backed by institutional and strategic investors, though specific lead investors were not disclosed.

Who’s Hiring? 👩‍💻

Be sure to check out the Dynamo website for more job opportunities at our portfolio companies!

UI/UX Product Designer at Ceto in London, England.

VP of Data at Stord in Atlanta, GA.

Senior Structures Engineer at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO.

💥 Have you seen any interesting startups recently? Introduce us.

🗞️ If you were forwarded this and found it interesting, please sign up.

🎙 Check out Dynamo’s podcast series, The Future of Supply Chain.

Weekly Commentary 💭

The rules of global trade are being rewritten in real time. Hormuz is under threat, aluminum plants are taking hits, cold storage is drowning in empty space, and the USMCA is up for its biggest renegotiation in years, all while AI is reshaping the infrastructure underneath it all, and companies are scrambling to figure out where they stand. The old playbook isn’t cutting it anymore. Read more below!

🥰 Love reading the Dispatch? Make sure you forward it to anyone looking to stay up to date with all things supply chain and mobility.

We Are Dynamo,

Madelyn, Madison, and the rest of the Dynamo team

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Make, Move, and Monetize 📦

⭐ The New Weapons of Global Power Are Oil, Rare Earths and Microchips. The escalation around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz is a sharp reminder that global power is tilting back toward control of physical chokepoints and hard assets, from oil and LNG to rare earths and semiconductors. As energy prices spike and supply routes come under direct threat, the bigger story is that economic leverage now sits as much with countries that control critical materials and industrial capacity as with those that dominate software, finance, or digital networks. The takeaway is that supply chains, once treated as efficiency systems, are increasingly becoming instruments of state power, with inflation, industrial output, and even AI buildouts now exposed to geopolitical disruption. Completely unrelated, Trailer Storage Demand Rises as Tariffs, Nearshoring Reshape Supply Chains.

US Pushes ‘Weeks, Not Months’ Iran Timeline as Hormuz Shipping Crisis Deepens. The US is signaling it wants the Iran operation wrapped up in weeks, not months, even as strikes continue and the Hormuz crisis keeps rattling energy markets. Reuters reports Washington believes it can meet its objectives without a ground war, but the combination of ongoing attacks, partial degradation of Iran’s missile arsenal, and rising oil and fuel prices suggests this is still far from contained. The real implication is that even if the military timeline stays relatively short, the economic and geopolitical fallout could prove much harder to unwind, especially if energy infrastructure and shipping lanes remain part of the conflict. Also, Iran has a New Demand to End the War – and It Could Bring in Billions, and Trump Says US Will Destroy Iran’s Oil Wells, Kharg Island Without Deal to ‘Immediately’ Reopen Hormuz Strait.

NVIDIA, Emerald AI Team with Energy Companies on “Flexible” Data Centers. NVIDIA and Emerald AI are pitching “flexible” data centers that can dial power use up or down based on grid conditions, with support from major energy players including AES, Constellation, NextEra, Invenergy, and Vistra. The idea is to make AI infrastructure less like a fixed power sink and more like an active grid participant, using Nvidia’s architecture and Emerald’s software to respond dynamically to periods of stress. The larger implication is that as AI power demand collides with grid constraints, the winners may be the companies that make data centers easier to integrate into the energy system, though for now, this looks more like an important strategic signal than a fully committed deployment wave. For more, check out Texas Saddles Up for Data Center Clash.

With Sift, Two Ex-SpaceX Engineers Are Bringing the Software That Helped Launch Rockets to the Factory Floor. Sift, founded by two ex-SpaceX engineers, is evolving from a telemetry workflow tool into the data infrastructure layer for modern manufacturing, as AI makes analysis features easier to replicate but sharply increases the value of clean, machine-readable industrial data. Its software helps companies like ULA and Astranis manage massive sensor and test-data streams from increasingly software-defined machines, which helped it raise a $42M Series B in 2025 at a $274M post-money valuation. The broader implication is that as factories become more AI-native, a meaningful share of the value may accrue not just to robotics and hardware players, but to the software platforms that organize the underlying data those systems depend on.

Cold-Storage Vacancies Hit 20-Year High. US cold-storage is hitting a painful reset. Vacancy reached a 20-year high of 6.9% in Q4 as pandemic-era overbuilding collided with softer demand, higher electricity costs, and shifting consumer behavior. The sector’s post-COVID boom drew in new developers and culminated in Lineage’s blockbuster 2024 IPO, but now even the biggest players are feeling the pressure, with revenue softness at both Lineage and Americold and growing expectations that weaker new entrants will wash out. What comes next is likely a classic oversupply shakeout, with scaled incumbents positioned to gain share as newer, less seasoned operators struggle to make the economics work. Related, Cold Storage Trough in Sight as Vacancies Hit 20-Year High.

FedEx Launches Same-Day Delivery with OneRail as Amazon, Walmart Boost Their Speeds. FedEx is launching same-day delivery with OneRail, giving retailers a faster shipping option just as Amazon, Walmart, and Target push delivery speeds even harder. The pitch is that retailers can offer tighter delivery windows and real-time tracking without having to build the operational complexity themselves, using OneRail’s network and software alongside FedEx’s reach. This underscores how fast delivery is becoming less of a premium feature and more of a baseline expectation, which means the real winners may be the platforms that help retailers match Amazon-level convenience without rebuilding their entire logistics stack. Completely unrelated, Stolen Freight Does Not Disappear Anymore.

Iran Strike on Key Aluminum Producer Threatens Global Supply Chains. Iran’s strike on Emirates Global Aluminium’s Al Taweelah facility shows the conflict is now hitting core industrial assets, not just military and energy targets, with potentially meaningful consequences for global aluminum flows. Because EGA is a major supplier, any prolonged disruption could ripple through autos, construction, packaging, and electronics, adding fresh cost pressure on top of already rising oil prices and shipping disruptions. The broader shift is that Middle East geopolitical risk is no longer just an energy story. It is becoming a wider commodities and industrial supply-chain shock. Also, Iran’s Attacks on Gulf Aluminum Plants Threaten Supply Crisis and Soaring Gas Prices and Supply Chain Disruptions Drive Up Costs Across the Economy.

AMD Talks With US Commerce Chief Put AI Supply Chain In Focus. AMD’s meeting with the US Commerce Secretary signals how strategically important the company has become to America’s semiconductor and AI agenda, with domestic manufacturing, supply-chain resilience, and national tech leadership now directly shaping its operating environment. The bigger story is that AMD is trying to lock in a more central role across the AI stack through policy access and ecosystem partnerships. Still, that upside comes with more exposure to export controls, compliance demands, and political scrutiny. For executives, investors, and founders, the takeaway is that AMD’s competitive position will increasingly be determined not just by product execution, but by how well it navigates government-backed industrial policy and turns that proximity into a durable commercial advantage. For more, check out US State Department Launches New $250M Pax Silica Fund to Secure Semiconductor Supply Chains.

Borderlands Mexico: USMCA Review to Reshape North American Supply Chains. The 2026 USMCA review is shaping up as more than a procedural check-in; it could become a reset for how North America thinks about trade, with supply-chain resilience, China competition, labor enforcement, digital rules, and industrial policy all on the table. Katherine Tai’s framing suggests the agreement is likely to be extended, but with sharper emphasis on regional manufacturing, tighter scrutiny of foreign investment, and updated rules for sectors like autos, tech, and energy. The bigger implication is that North American trade is moving away from simple tariff reduction and toward a more strategic model built around economic security, making the review a potential turning point for how companies design sourcing, production, and market access across the region.

Warehouses Face $100K-Hour Downtime Risk as Cloud Outages Mount. Warehouse operators are waking up to the fact that cloud dependency can turn a technical hiccup into a major operational and financial event, with downtime now costing anywhere from $5,000 to $100,000 per hour. The more important shift is that resilience is starting to outrank AI as the priority, pushing interest toward hybrid WMS setups that keep live operations running locally even when cloud connectivity fails. In practice, that means warehouse tech strategy is moving from pure efficiency and centralization toward architectures built for continuity, customer trust, and damage control when outages hit. Related, Cloud Outages Disrupt Warehouse Operations, Drive High Costs.

Request for Startups 📢

Dynamo is always looking to meet startups that are helping to make, move, and monetize goods. Check out our latest request for startups below!

Industrial verticals like chemicals, aerospace, and electrical distribution run on fragmented systems and institutional knowledge that horizontal software can’t handle. The opportunity is AI-native, verticalized platforms that embed compliance logic and automate core workflows without forcing a rip-and-replace. Read more here.

The Future of Supply Chain 🎙️

Check out our podcast series that’s been running since 2018. On each episode of the Future of Supply Chain, we sit down with a different entrepreneur, investor, or industry veteran to discuss innovation, technology, and the most exciting opportunities in supply chain as we build the future of the industry together.

Fundraises and M&A 💸

Grand Raises $5M in Pre-Seed Funding. Grand is building an AI-powered trust and payment network for real-world industries such as construction, manufacturing, and trade supply, enabling businesses to evaluate and onboard partners based on continuous behavioral data. The company will use the funding to expand into the UK and Europe, grow its engineering and data science teams, and deepen its AI-driven platform capabilities. The round was led by 20VC, with participation from NAP and Firedrop.

Conduit Raises $6M in Seed Funding. Conduit provides a dock and yard management system for warehouses, with modular tools for dock scheduling, driver self-check-in, documentation, and yard management that create a system of record for shipping and receiving operations. The company will use the funding to deepen its core platform, expand AI-based workflows such as predictive scheduling and real-time exception alerting, and grow its engineering and customer success teams. The round was led by Innovation Endeavors, with participation from Y Combinator.

Krane Raises $9M in Seed Funding. Krane provides an AI-native platform for construction supply chain management that automates material planning, procurement, and coordination workflows across project lifecycles. The company will use the funds to accelerate its product roadmap execution and expand enterprise deployments. The round was co-led by Glasswing Ventures and Link Ventures, with participation from Tunitas Ventures, RoseCliff, New-Normal Ventures, and angel investors.

Doss Raises $55M in Series B Funding. Doss provides an AI-native inventory management platform that integrates with existing accounting and ERP systems to synchronize physical goods data with financial workflows. The company will use the funding to expand its product capabilities and continue building out its inventory and supply chain traceability layer alongside accounting partners. The round was co-led by Madrona and Premji Invest, with participation from Intuit Ventures, Theory Ventures, General Catalyst, Contrary Capital, and Greyhound Capital.

Kaliun Raises $250K in Seed Funding. Kaliun is an AI-powered construction CRM platform designed for residential general contractors, integrating proposal generation, project management, subcontractor coordination, invoicing, and expense tracking into a single system. The company will use the funds to accelerate product development and support its national rollout, including expanding AI capabilities and onboarding early adopters. The investment was led by TGA Kitchens & Remodeling founder Tomer Amar, with participation from private investors.

Zipline Raises $200M in Series H Funding. Zipline develops an autonomous drone delivery and logistics platform that includes aircraft, launch and landing systems, and software to deliver medical, retail, food, and agricultural products. The company will use the additional funding to accelerate US expansion into new markets and support continued growth of its home delivery service and global operations. The extension round included participation from Paradigm, with prior investors in the Series H round including Fidelity Management & Research Company, Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity Partners, and Tiger Global.

Who’s Hiring? 👩‍💻

Be sure to check out the Dynamo website for more job opportunities at our portfolio companies!

Senior Software Engineer Improvin’ in Stockholm, Sweden.

Director of Defense at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO.

Systems Integration Engineer at Manna in Dublin, Ireland

💥 Have you seen any interesting startups recently? Introduce us.

🗞️ If you were forwarded this and found it interesting, please sign up.

🎙 Check out Dynamo’s podcast series, The Future of Supply Chain.

Weekly Commentary 💭

The Iran war is reshaping supply chains in real time. Oil shocks are tightening freight, pushing construction costs hot, and sending buyers scrambling to reroute and restock. Meanwhile, Tesla’s Semi is turning heads on the road, China’s robots are getting to work on the factory floor, and DHL is making a big bet that the data center boom needs its own logistics layer. Read more below!

🥰 Love reading the Dispatch? Make sure you forward it to anyone looking to stay up to date with all things supply chain and mobility.

We Are Dynamo,

Madelyn, Madison and the rest of the Dynamo team

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Make, Move, and Monetize 📦

⭐ DHL Supply Chain Powers Up Warehouses to Supply Data Centers. DHL Supply Chain is building a dedicated logistics layer for the AI data-center boom, opening 10 North American warehouses totaling more than 7M square feet to serve hyperscalers and the suppliers feeding their build-outs. The bet is that data-center logistics is becoming a specialized, high-value service, from rack assembly to sensitive equipment transport and rural-site staging, and that operators would rather outsource that complexity than build it in-house. This is another sign that AI infrastructure spending is spilling far beyond chips and servers into warehouses, transport, and industrial real estate. The winners won’t just be the data-center builders themselves, but the logistics and supply-chain firms that become critical enablers of speed, uptime, and scale. Completely unrelated, Trans-Pacific Contract Talks Accelerating After Walmart Signs.

The Strait of Hormuz is About More Than Just Oil. It Feeds 100 Million People. The Strait of Hormuz disruption is exposing a second-order crisis beyond oil: the Gulf’s food system is highly import-dependent, and with commercial shipping effectively choked off, retailers are rerouting perishables through India, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, and even overland via Europe and Turkey at sharply higher cost. For countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, which import the vast majority of their food, the result is mounting freight, insurance, and logistics expenses, delayed deliveries, and the likelihood of higher shelf prices with less product variety, even if outright shortages are not yet expected. The broader implication is that geopolitical chokepoints now threaten not just energy markets but basic consumer resilience across the Gulf, making supply-chain redundancy, food security infrastructure, and trade-route diversification far more strategic than they looked in peacetime. Also, Gulf Importers Race to Reroute as Hormuz Closure Jolts Supply Chains and How the Iran Conflict Is Disrupting Global Supply Chains.

Five Takeaways from State of Freight: Already Strong Market Gets a Wartime Jolt. The freight market was already tightening, and the Iran war has added another accelerant by driving up diesel costs just as tender rejections, spot rates, and shipper demand were all strengthening. FreightWaves’ March State of Freight argues this is not a seasonal blip: rising rejection rates, stronger flatbed pricing tied to industrial and data center buildouts, and the removal of non-compliant capacity all point to a market with real momentum. The implication is that shippers are getting squeezed from multiple angles at once — higher linehaul rates, rising fuel surcharges, and fewer available trucks — while carriers are regaining pricing power faster than many expected. For operators, investors, and founders, that makes this less about a temporary fuel shock and more about a structural turn in freight conditions that could persist through the spring. For more, check out Freight, Oil Influence US DDGS Market Direction as Middle East Conflict Continues.

US Resin Shippers Look to Tap New Customers Amid Iran War. US resin exports are spiking as the Iran war disrupts shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off a major source of global plastics supply and pushing US polyethylene prices to roughly 3x their late-February levels. Europe looks like the clearest near-term winner for incremental US volumes because trans-Atlantic economics are more attractive, while Asia likely needs a longer stretch of elevated prices to justify the longer lead times and higher freight risk. The key issue is whether this becomes a brief dislocation or a sustained trade reset: if the conflict drags on, US producers and logistics providers could capture meaningful share in export markets, but capacity limits, fuel surcharges, and route economics will determine who actually monetizes the shift.

Asian Consumers Turn to EVs Amid Iran Oil Shock. The Iran oil shock is giving EV adoption in Asia a real-world catalyst, with BYD in the Philippines and VinFast in Vietnam seeing sharp jumps in showroom traffic and sales as consumers look to escape rising fuel costs. The bigger story is that Chinese and regional EV makers are capturing the upside faster than legacy automakers, but whether this demand surge sticks will depend on charging buildout and whether high oil prices last long enough to change buying behavior structurally. This is a reminder that energy volatility can accelerate electrification faster than policy alone, and that the companies best positioned are the ones with affordable models, local distribution, and infrastructure scale already in place. Related, Reeling From the Iran War’s Oil Shock and ‘Running Out of Ideas’.

Construction Prices Spiked at ‘Staggering’ Rate to Begin 2026. Construction input costs came into 2026 running much hotter than many expected, rising at a 12.6% annualized pace through February as energy, copper, lumber, and steel all moved higher even before the Iran war’s latest oil shock fully hit the data. The concern is not just headline inflation but the second-order effect, higher diesel and shipping costs could push project economics out of balance and start forcing more owners to delay or pause jobs. The signal is that margin pressure in construction may be shifting from manageable to meaningful, especially if oil stays elevated and tariff-related volatility persists. Contractor sentiment has held up so far, but that optimism now looks vulnerable if input escalation starts outrunning what owners are willing to absorb. Completely unrelated, Stolen Target Trailer Leads Police to Huge Retail Crime Cache.

Tesla Finally Has Its First Semi-Truck and It’s Already a Hit With Truckers. Tesla’s long-delayed Semi appears to have found genuine product-market fit with drivers and fleet operators, thanks to a combination of practical advantages rather than hype: a centered cab that improves visibility, faster charging, and a 500-mile range that expands viable use cases beyond short drayage routes. The bigger surprise is that interest is arriving even as the broader US EV policy backdrop has weakened, with California grant demand and fleet orders suggesting the Semi may succeed because it solves real operating pain points, not because of subsidies alone. This matters because it hints that electrification in trucking may restart from the bottom up around vehicles with clear driver and fleet economics, rather than from mandates. If Tesla can execute on production and charging infrastructure, the Semi could become one of the first EV products to materially reshape freight operations at scale. Also, Truckers Stunned by Bizarre Feature of Tesla’s New Semi-Truck: ‘This Changes Everything’ and Truckers Love Tesla’s Electric Semi-Truck. Here’s Why.

Inside China’s Robotics Revolution. China’s humanoid robot push is real, fast-moving, and heavily subsidized, but the sci-fi vision of truly general-purpose humanlike robots is still farther off than the hype suggests. What exists today is a spectrum: some companies are already deploying useful, narrow robots in factories, retail, and logistics, while the hardest frontier remains giving humanoids enough real-world data and dexterity to operate reliably in messy, unscripted environments. The bigger takeaway is that China may not need to crack full artificial general robotics first to win commercially; it can dominate by building cheaper, specialized robots and the supply chains behind them at scale. That means the near-term opportunity is less “robot butler” and more industrial automation, teleoperation infrastructure, and vertically integrated hardware ecosystems that can turn labor replacement into a viable business now. For more, check out China is Putting OpenClaw to Work in Robots.

Thousands of Workers Strike at One of the Largest Meatpacking Plants in the US. Thousands of workers at JBS’s massive Greeley, Colorado, beef plant have launched the first US slaughterhouse strike in roughly 40 years, with 99% of the plant’s 3,800 union workers backing a walkout over wages, healthcare, and alleged unfair labor practices. The strike hits a plant that accounts for about 6% of US beef slaughter capacity at a moment when cattle supply is already near a 75-year low, beef prices are at record levels, and political scrutiny on food inflation is intensifying. The bigger takeaway is that labor unrest is now colliding with a structurally tight protein supply chain, raising the odds of higher consumer prices and exposing how concentrated, fragile, and politically sensitive the US meat system has become.

North America Ports and Trade Update. 2025 showed that tariffs disrupted North American trade flows without breaking them, as importers front-loaded shipments, rebuilt inventories, and redesigned networks around flexibility, redundancy, and regionalization. Even with monthly volatility, cargo through major US ports was nearly flat year over year, while industrial demand increasingly shifted from expensive coastal nodes toward inland hubs that offer lower costs, intermodal access, and stronger nearshoring connectivity. The real takeaway is that resilience is no longer just an operating principle; it is becoming the organizing logic for both logistics networks and industrial real estate. The advantage now goes to those positioned around optionality: modern facilities, inland corridors, and port strategies that balance speed with cost and policy risk. Unrelated, Future AI Chips Could Be Built on Glass.

Request for Startups 📢

Dynamo is always looking to meet startups that are helping to make, move, and monetize goods. Check out our latest request for startups below!

Composable WMS/OMS — The opportunity exists to build a composable WMS/OMS that preserves the core data models operators rely on, while making the system far easier to configure and extend without developer involvement, dramatically reducing the implementation and maintenance overhead that has long plagued the category. Read more here.

The Future of Supply Chain 🎙️

Check out our podcast series that’s been running since 2018. On each episode of the Future of Supply Chain, we sit down with a different entrepreneur, investor, or industry veteran to discuss innovation, technology, and the most exciting opportunities in supply chain as we build the future of the industry together.

Fundraises and M&A 💸

RBW Logistics Receives Growth Investment from LongueVue Capital. RBW Logistics provides third-party logistics services, including warehousing, fulfillment, and value-added supply chain solutions for industrial and consumer goods customers. The investment will support the company’s expansion across the Southeastern US and fund continued growth and operational scaling. LongueVue Capital led the transaction in partnership with RBW’s management team.

Grodi Raises €2.5M in Funding. Grodi develops autonomous agricultural robots, including its VEGA 11 system, which uses computer vision and machine learning to deliver real-time plant health and yield data to growers and agribusinesses. The company will use the funds to industrialize its VEGA 11 robot, expand its commercial presence across Spain’s horticultural regions, and accelerate international expansion. The round was led by Swanlaab Innvierte Agri FoodTech, with participation from Axon Desarrollo Andalucía and Innvierte.

Lithium Battery Company Raises $4.3M in Funding. Lithium Battery Company designs and manufactures lithium-ion battery packs and is developing a fully automated, vertically integrated domestic battery production facility. The company will use the funds to build out its Tampa-based automated manufacturing plant, expand R&D capabilities, and scale workforce development to support production growth. Investor details were not disclosed.

Tenkara Raises $7M in Seed Funding. Tenkara builds operational software agents that automate procurement, supplier management, compliance, and logistics workflows for US manufacturers. The company will use the funds to accelerate growth and expand its team as it scales its platform across domestic manufacturing customers. The round was led by True Ventures, with participation from HF0, WndrCo, Articulate Capital, Night Capital, SF1, Transpose, and early employees at Flexport.

eternal.ag Raises €8M in Funding. eternal.ag develops autonomous greenhouse harvesting robots, starting with a tomato-picking system built using a simulation-first approach to train and validate robots in virtual environments before real-world deployment. The company will use the funds to accelerate product development, expand commercial deployments across Europe, and extend its platform to additional crop types beyond tomatoes. The round included Simon Capital, Oyster Bay Venture Capital, EquityPitcher Ventures, and Backbone Ventures.

Zero RFI Raises $13.8M in Seed Funding. Zero RFI is an AI-native platform that acquires and integrates construction services businesses to deliver shared intelligence, infrastructure, and decision-making tools across the building lifecycle. The company will use the funds to scale its platform, expand its portfolio of acquisitions, and deploy AI-driven solutions to improve productivity and coordination in construction projects. The round was led by General Catalyst.

RoboForce Raises $52M in Funding. RoboForce develops physical AI robots and a robotics software stack designed to perform repetitive, hazardous, and labor-intensive tasks across industrial environments such as manufacturing, logistics, and energy infrastructure. The company will use the funds to advance its robot foundation model, scale production of its general-purpose robots, and accelerate commercialization and deployment across industrial sectors. The round was led by YZi Labs, with participation from Jerry Yang, and existing investors including Myron Scholes, Gary Rieschel, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Project Prometheus Seeks $100B for AI-Focused Manufacturing Fund. Bezos’ Project Prometheus is focused on acquiring manufacturing companies and applying artificial intelligence to physical-world industrial operations. The capital is intended to fund acquisitions and integrate AI capabilities across traditional manufacturing businesses. Jeff Bezos is leading fundraising efforts, with outreach to large global asset managers, including investors in the Middle East and Singapore.

Who’s Hiring? 👩‍💻

Be sure to check out the Dynamo website for more job opportunities at our portfolio companies!

Flight Software Engineer at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO.

UI/UX Product Designer at Ceto in London, England.

Demand Generation Director, Logistics & Supply Chain AI - Fractional at Raft in London, England.

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Weekly Commentary 💭

The Strait of Hormuz is closed, and the world is feeling it. Oil is near $100, ten Maersk ships are trapped in the Persian Gulf, and 200,000 TEUs are piling up at fallback ports as carriers scramble to reroute. What started as a geopolitical flashpoint is fast becoming a global trade and inflation shock. Read more below.

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We Are Dynamo,

Madelyn, Madison and the rest of the Dynamo team

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Make, Move, and Monetize 📦

⭐ Oil Markets Brace for Lasting Turmoil in the Gulf. Oil markets are increasingly pricing in a longer, more structural disruption in the Gulf, with Brent back above $100 and analysts raising forecasts as attacks on tankers, mine threats, and shut-in production suggest the Strait of Hormuz could remain impaired for weeks or longer. Emergency reserve releases and a scramble for replacement barrels, including renewed buying of Russian crude, are helping at the margin, but they are not enough to fully offset the scale of lost flows or the operational damage building across the region. The bigger message is that this is shifting from a short-term price spike into a broader energy and macro risk, with prolonged disruption now likely to feed through into inflation, industrial costs, and global growth. Completely unrelated, Hutchison Seeks $2B in Damages from Panama After Terminal Deal Canceled.

Waves of Diverted Containers Swamping Middle East Ports. Middle East port congestion is spreading well beyond the Persian Gulf as carriers offload Jebel Ali- and Gulf-bound containers early at fallback ports like Khor Fakkan, Sohar, Karachi, Mundra, and Nhava Sheva, after the Feb. 28 US-Iran escalation effectively shut or constrained Gulf port access. The disruption is now tying up more than 200,000 TEUs of capacity inside the Gulf, worsening container equipment shortages in Asia, pushing up rates into India and the East Med, and triggering hefty war-risk and emergency surcharges across carrier networks. The broader message is that a localized geopolitical shock can very quickly turn into a global trade problem, pressuring freight costs, equipment availability, and schedule reliability across multiple markets. Also, Middle East Conflict Dampens Fears of Container Sector Overcapacity and Middle East Conflict Rewrites Container Shipping Outlook, Easing Overcapacity Fears.

We Got Hooked on Fast, Free Shipping. Now Retailers Are Taking It Away. Retailers are retraining consumers to accept slower delivery because fast shipping has gotten too expensive to subsidize: FedEx and UPS keep raising rates, merchants are pushing “no rush” or flexible delivery windows, and shoppers are proving surprisingly willing to wait if it saves money. The shift is being reinforced by players like Shein and Temu, by clearer checkout communication around timing, and by an unexpected upside for brands: slower shipping can reduce returns by attracting more intentional buyers. This matters because “fast, free shipping” is starting to look less like a permanent consumer expectation and more like a margin-eroding perk that many retailers can no longer afford. For operators and investors, the takeaway is that delivery is becoming a lever for pricing, profitability, and customer quality—not just a convenience feature. For more, check out Retail News: Amazon’s Rapid AI Push Hits Setbacks While Retail Rethinks Fast Delivery.

US-China Trade Talks Open in Paris, Paving Way for Summit. The US and China have opened trade talks in Paris ahead of a planned Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing at the end of March, signaling an effort to stabilize one of the world’s most consequential economic relationships after months of tariff tensions and policy whiplash. The talks, led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Vice Premier He Lifeng, are expected to focus on trade disputes, possible new tariffs, and potentially the Iran war, which is adding fresh pressure through energy markets and global shipping risk. The real significance is that this meeting is less about resolving every dispute now and more about testing whether the two sides can create enough alignment, or at least enough predictability, to keep the broader relationship from becoming even more disruptive to global trade.

Supply Chain Layoffs Spread Across Warehouses, Factories and Rail Terminals. Layoffs are spreading across the US supply chain, with nearly 4,000 jobs cut across warehouses, factories, rail terminals, and distribution centers as companies respond to softer demand, bankruptcies, lost contracts, and network consolidation. The biggest reductions are concentrated in automotive and industrial supply chains, including SK Battery America, First Brands Group, and Ashley Furniture, but the pullback is also hitting logistics operators like Parsec, GXO, GEODIS, and FedEx, suggesting this is less a one-off and more a broad-based reset across freight-linked sectors. The bigger picture is that supply chain weakness is no longer isolated to one mode or industry; it is showing up across manufacturing, transportation, and fulfillment at the same time, a sign that demand is softening and operators are getting more aggressive about cutting capacity. Related, Recent Supply Chain Layoffs Impact Nearly 4,000 US Workers.

Travis Kalanick’s Secretive Robotics Startup. Travis Kalanick has resurfaced with Atoms, a sprawling robotics venture evolved from CloudKitchens that spans food automation, autonomous mining vehicles, and robotic transport, with Uber reportedly investing around $100M in its self-driving arm. The company reunites Kalanick with several former Uber operators, including Anthony Levandowski and ex-ATG head Eric Meyhofer, making Atoms both a comeback story and a revival of one of Silicon Valley’s most controversial autonomous-driving circles. Atoms represents a high-conviction bet that “movement” is the foundational problem behind multiple trillion-dollar industries, from logistics to mining to food delivery. For Uber, backing the company is a strategic hedge on autonomy after exiting in-house AV development; for founders and investors, it’s another sign that the next major platform race may be in physical-world automation, not just software. Completely unrelated, Japan’s Proterial Eyes Making Magnets Without Heavy Rare Earths in North America.

Oil Trades Near $100 as Iran Vows to Keep Hormuz Closed. Oil is trading near $100 as the Iran war keeps the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, capping one of the most volatile weeks ever for crude and choking off shipments of oil, gas, and refined products through one of the world’s most critical energy corridors. Emergency reserve releases and temporary waivers for Russian oil are helping at the margin, but the market is still bracing for prolonged disruption as mine fears, ship attacks, and limited naval options keep traffic through the strait close to a standstill. The broader significance is that this is no longer just a commodity spike, it is shaping up as an inflationary and macro shock with consequences for transport costs, industrial supply chains, and global growth. Also, Fear of Iranian Mines in the Strait of Hormuz Could Further Slow the Flow of Oil and Trump’s Call for Allied Deployment to Strait of Hormuz Meets Muted Response.

Microsoft, Meta Fuel $700B Boom in Data Center Leases. Microsoft and Meta each added nearly $50B in new data center lease commitments last quarter, helping push total future lease obligations across the biggest cloud players past $700B as the AI infrastructure race accelerates. Bloomberg’s analysis shows these long-dated commitments, spanning roughly 15 to 19 years and concentrated mostly in data centers, are becoming a major, largely off-balance-sheet expression of how aggressively companies like Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, and Amazon are betting on future AI demand. The bigger takeaway is that AI is no longer just a software story; it is becoming a capital-intensive story, with the winners increasingly defined by who can lock up power, land, and compute capacity at enormous scale. For more, check out Hyperscalers Are Spending Nearly $700B in 2026 on AI Infrastructure - but This Pales in Comparison to the Estimated $1T Spent by S&P 500 Companies on Another “Growth” Initiative.

Ten Maersk Ships ‘Trapped’ in Persian Gulf. Maersk says 10 of its ships are effectively trapped inside the Persian Gulf after Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting how quickly the conflict has pushed global shipping into what the carrier calls “uncharted territory.” Even if a ceasefire happened soon, CEO Vincent Clerc says it would still take a week to 10 days to restore normal operations, while carriers face vessel damage, denied naval escorts, rerouting costs, fuel-supply risks, and mounting emergency surcharges. The broader point is that this is moving beyond a regional shipping disruption into a deeper capacity and cost shock, with stranded vessels, delayed cargo, and higher operating risk likely to ripple across global supply chains.

It’s Not Just Oil: The Iran War Upends Global Supply Chains. The Iran war is no longer just an energy story; it is now disrupting global supply chains across autos, containers, fuel, and port operations as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz strands ships, redirects cargo, and clogs fallback ports across the Indian Ocean. Carriers have suspended key Middle East routes, freight rates into nearby markets are surging, legal and operational workarounds like offloading cargo at substitute ports are creating new delays and costs, and even Asian shipping hubs are starting to feel the strain through tighter fuel availability. The broader takeaway is that a single chokepoint disruption can quickly spill far beyond the region, turning a geopolitical conflict into a wider trade, logistics, and cost shock for companies around the world. Related, The Iran War Is Throwing Global Shipping Into Chaos.

The Future of Supply Chain 🎙️

Check out our podcast series that’s been running since 2018. On each episode of the Future of Supply Chain, we sit down with a different entrepreneur, investor, or industry veteran to discuss innovation, technology, and the most exciting opportunities in supply chain as we build the future of the industry together.

Fundraises and M&A 💸

Lux Aeterna Raises $10M in Seed Funding. Lux Aeterna is developing reusable satellites, starting with its 200-kilogram Delphi-1 spacecraft, which is designed to survive atmospheric reentry, return payloads from low Earth orbit, and fly again with new payloads. The company will use the funding to advance Delphi-1 toward a planned first-quarter 2027 demonstration mission, including completing development milestones, expanding testing infrastructure, and growing headcount ahead of the flight. Konvoy led the round, with participation from Decisive Point, Cubit Capital, and Wave Function, alongside follow-on investment from existing backers Space Capital, Dynamo Ventures, and Channel 39.

Qurrent Raises $15M in Series A Funding. Qurrent provides autonomous AI-powered digital workers that execute complex back-office operations such as invoice collection, vendor payments, supply chain reconciliation, and property management tasks. The company will use the funding to accelerate enterprise expansion and further develop its platform capabilities. The round was led by Cervin Ventures with participation from Streamlined Ventures.

WayCool Raises $22.7M in Funding. WayCool operates a full-stack agritech platform that connects farmers with retailers, food brands, and institutional buyers while providing sourcing, distribution, and food processing services to improve agricultural supply chains. The company will use the funding to support its operations and continued development of its agriculture supply chain platform as it works toward profitability. The round was funded by existing investor Lightrock India through a rights issue.

Evervault Raises $25M in Series B Funding. Evervault provides a developer-focused data security platform that enables organizations to encrypt and orchestrate sensitive data without exposing it in plaintext, with tools for secure processing, authentication, and payment data handling. The company will use the funding to expand its encryption infrastructure, accelerate product development, and grow its engineering and product teams. The round was led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Operator Partners.

BackOps Raises $26M in Series A Funding. BackOps develops an AI-native operating system for supply chain operations that automates logistics workflows by converting communications like emails and service tickets into automated actions across vendors, carriers, and internal systems. The company will use the funding to scale its team and accelerate development of its AI-driven logistics automation platform. The round was led by Theory Ventures, with participation from Gradient, Construct Capital, and 10VC.

RLWRLD Raises $26M in Seed 2 Funding. RLWRLD develops robotics foundation models trained directly in live industrial environments to power AI-driven robots for factories, logistics networks, and service operations. The company will use the funding to advance development of its robotics foundation model, expand global deployments, and support commercialization through collaborations with industrial partners. The round included financial investors Headline Asia and Z Venture Capital, alongside strategic investors including CJ Logistics, Kakao Investment, Lotte Ventures, Hanwha Asset Management, Mirae Asset–Emart Investment Fund I, Hyosung Ventures, Smilegate Investment, T Investment, and returning investor Hashed Ventures.

Isembard Raises $50M in Series A Funding. Isembard manufactures high-precision components for aerospace, defence, energy, and robotics customers through a network of factories operated with its proprietary AI-driven manufacturing operating system, MasonOS. The new capital will fund the launch of 25 factories by the end of 2026, expand the company’s engineering teams, and support geographic expansion into Germany, France, and Ukraine. The round was led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from Tamarack Global and IQ Capital alongside existing investors Notion Capital and CIV.

Oro Labs Raises $100M in Series C Funding. Oro Labs develops an AI-powered procurement orchestration platform that sits on top of enterprise procurement and ERP systems to automate purchasing workflows, compliance checks, and supplier management processes. The company will use the funding to accelerate growth by expanding product capabilities, investing in research and development, and scaling its sales and go-to-market teams while growing its partner ecosystem. The round was led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity and Brighton Park Capital, with participation from existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, B Capital, XYZ Capital, and Felicis.

D-Robotics Raises $120M in B1 Financing. D-Robotics develops a full-stack robotics computing platform for embodied AI, providing chips, algorithms, and system software designed to power applications such as humanoid robots, robotic dogs, drones, and logistics AMRs. The company will use the funding to accelerate research and development of its hardware–software robotics platform, including edge–cloud computing infrastructure and tools that support large-scale deployment of intelligent robots. The round includes strategic collaboration with Horizon Robotics, which is contributing its BPU computing architecture and foundation model capabilities.

Rhoda AI Raises $450M in Series A Funding. Rhoda AI develops robot foundation models and control systems that use internet-scale video pretraining and closed-loop video-predictive control to enable robots to operate autonomously in dynamic real-world industrial environments. The company will use the funding to advance research and engineering, expand industrial deployments and customer pilots, and grow its multidisciplinary team across generative AI, computer vision, and robotics. Lead investor not specified; participating investors include Capricorn Investment Group, Khosla Ventures, Leitmotif, Matter Venture Partners, Mayfield, Premji Invest, Prelude Ventures, Temasek, Xora, and angel investor John Doerr.

Mind Robotics Raises $500M in Funding. Mind Robotics develops AI-powered industrial robots designed to perform physical manufacturing tasks such as picking parts, assembling components, and manipulating wiring harnesses in factory environments. The company will use the funding to develop and deploy its robotics systems, including training and testing them within Rivian’s automotive manufacturing facilities using factory data. The round was led by Accel and Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Rivian.

Who’s Hiring? 👩‍💻

Be sure to check out the Dynamo website for more job opportunities at our portfolio companies!

Director of Defense at Lux Aeterna in Denver, CO.

Senior Software Engineer at Improvin’ in Stockhold, SE (Hybrid).

Controls Engineer at Plus One Robotics in San Antonio, TX.