Robotics Funding Hits Record $18.8 Billion as Robots Move Into Food and Care

Global robotics venture funding reached a record $18.8 billion in 2026, and a growing share is going to embodied AI that fills human gaps in food production, farming, elder care, and labor-short industries.

Robotics Funding Hits Record $18.8 Billion as Robots Move Into Food and Care Global robotics venture funding reached a record $18.8 billion in 2026, and a growing share is going to embodied AI that fills human gaps in food production, farming, elder care, and labor-short industries. Aaron Rafferty June 23, 2026 Key Takeaways Global robotics venture funding hit a record $18.8 billion in 2026 so far, surpassing all of 2025's $15 billion and the prior 2021 peak of $14.1 billion, according to Crunchbase. A growing share of that capital is going to embodied AI built to fill human gaps in food production, agriculture, elder care, and labor-short industries, not only defense and chips. Backers now include strategic industrial names like John Deere and Mercedes-Benz, a sign robotics is being treated as infrastructure rather than a hardware gamble. Global robotics venture funding reached $18.8 billion in 2026 so far, already past the $15 billion raised in all of 2025 and the prior peak of $14.1 billion set in 2021, according to Crunchbase . The money is arriving faster than in any year on record. The headline number hides where a lot of it is going. Investors are backing embodied AI, machines with a physical body that can perceive and act in the real world, and a growing share is aimed at places where there are not enough people to do the work. Apptronik, which builds humanoid robots, extended its Series A to more than $935 million with backers including Google, Mercedes-Benz, and farm-equipment maker John Deere. That investor list is the tell. When a tractor company funds a humanoid, the bet is labor, not novelty. Food production, warehouses, elder care, and agriculture all face worker shortages that deepen as populations age, and robots are being pointed at the gap. Genera