$4.1 Billion for Robot Excavators. $1.2 Billion for Dogs That Don't Exist Yet.
By Mason Trinkner · · 7 min read
Good morning, Mason here,
This week the money went to things you can drop on your foot.
A startup that turns excavators into robots is now worth $4.1 billion.
A satellite maker is reportedly in talks at $4 billion, up from $2.3 billion in June.
A company building a backup for GPS raised again after just seven months.
And a startup that wants to clone and gene-edit military dogs is worth $1.2 billion before a single puppy is born.
Six hardware deals. Only one of them shared revenue.
Read time: 5 mins
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FOLLOW THE MONEY
CONSTRUCTION ROBOTICS |
Bedrock Robotics Is Worth $4.1 Billion for Excavators That Drive Themselves |
Bedrock's self-driving kit works on standard excavators like these. Photo: Bedrock Robotics
Bedrock Robotics raised a $600 million Series C at a $4.1 billion valuation. CapitalG and Emergence Capital led. Bessemer, Temasek and USIT came in as new investors, and Nvidia was already on the cap table.
It sells a kit that turns regular excavators into self-driving ones. CEO Boris Sofman used to run Waymo's self-driving truck program, and a lot of his team came from Waymo too. Their pitch is a labor shortage: it takes years to get good at running an excavator, and the industry is losing operators to retirement fast.
The machines are working now. Bedrock is digging at a water treatment plant in Nevada, an earthwork site in Texas and a big civil project with Zachry Construction. Its newest partner, Haydon, builds data centers among other things.
Look at the speed, though. In February Bedrock raised $270 million at $1.75 billion. Nine months later the price is up about 2.3 times, and it still hasn't shared revenue. It moved from pilots to real job sites only a couple of months ago.
SPACE HARDWARE |
Apex Wants $4 Billion. In June It Was Worth $2.3 Billion. |
Satellite buses on the line at Apex's factory in Los Angeles. Photo: Apex
According to Bloomberg, Apex is negotiating a round of about $500 million that would value it near $4 billion. The report came out last Thursday. Washington Harbour Partners looks set to lead, and Andreessen Horowitz and XYZ Venture Capital are coming back in. Nothing is signed.
Apex builds satellite buses, the part of a satellite that handles power and movement. Instead of designing each one from scratch, it sells a few standard models out of a factory in Los Angeles built for about 200 a year. CEO Ian Cinnamon sold his last company to Palantir, and CTO Max Benassi helped scale manufacturing at SpaceX.
Defense is the driver here. Apex is working with Northrop Grumman on space-based interceptors for Golden Dome, the planned U.S. missile shield, with flight tests expected in 2027.
In June, Apex raised $200 million at $2.3 billion. Four months later it's talking about $4 billion. Revenue isn't public, so most of that jump is a bet on Golden Dome getting funded.
NAVIGATION |
Xona Raised $250 Million to Build a Backup for GPS |
Engineers at work on a Xona satellite. Photo: Xona Space Systems
Xona Space Systems raised a $250 million Series D at a $2.45 billion valuation, led by Steve Jurvetson's Future Ventures. Jurvetson sat on SpaceX's board for years. Xona has now raised over $570 million.
The product is Pulsar, a navigation service from low Earth orbit that Xona says will be stronger and harder to jam than GPS. That matters more every year, as GPS jamming keeps spreading.
It's getting real. The FCC approved Xona's full constellation in August, and the first six production satellites went up on a SpaceX rideshare on October 20. Xona wants to build 50 a year by the end of 2027 and start commercial service that same year.
The catch: this round came just seven months after a $170 million Series C. There's no public revenue or customer list yet, and paid service doesn't start until 2027.
INDUSTRIAL AI |
Tractian Became a Unicorn With $100 Million in Revenue |
Tractian's software scores the health of a pump in real time. Image: Tractian
Tractian raised a $130 million Series D at a $1.4 billion valuation, led by Sapphire Ventures with M&G Catalyst. That's almost double the $720 million it was worth in late 2024.
Picture a sensor stuck on a factory pump, listening for the vibration that means it's about to break. That's Tractian. The company was born in Brazil in 2019 and runs out of Atlanta now. Eli Lilly, Whirlpool, Coca-Cola, Cummins and Embraer all use it.
This is the only company in the issue that told us its revenue. Tractian says annualized revenue passed $100 million in September, up from $40 million in 2024. So it's priced around 14 times revenue, cheap next to the rest of this list.
ENERGY STORAGE |
Peak Energy Raised $108 Million With Over $1 Billion in Orders |
One of Peak Energy's sodium-ion storage systems. Photo: Peak Energy
Peak Energy raised a $108 million Series B led by GM Ventures, with Eclipse, Xora, LG Technology Ventures, Maverick Silicon and Infinite Capital joining. No valuation was shared.
It makes grid batteries out of sodium instead of lithium, and they don't need active cooling. Peak says that cuts energy costs by up to 20%, which hasn't been independently checked. The money will also help it sell to data centers.
The orders are the strong part. Peak says it has more than $1 billion booked, including up to 4.75 gigawatt-hours for Jupiter Power from 2027 to 2030. The weak part is that its Sacramento factory doesn't start until early 2027, and right now its cells come from Chinese suppliers.
DEFENSE BIOTECH |
Warhound Is Worth $1.2 Billion and Its Dogs Haven't Been Born Yet |
Warhound's concept art. The real dogs don't exist yet. Image: Warhound
Warhound came out of stealth with $200 million at a $1.2 billion valuation. Sequoia, 8VC, Corner Ventures and In-Q-Tel, the CIA-backed investment firm, put money in.
It was dreamed up by Colossal Biosciences CEO Ben Lamm and Anduril founder Palmer Luckey. The plan is to clone and gene-edit Belgian Malinois and German Shepherds for the military and police, then add Anduril vests and goggles on top. Warhound says more than 80% of U.S. military working dogs come from Europe, and fewer than half are fit for service.
The first puppies are supposed to be born early next year, with service maybe two years out. No prices, no approvals and no dogs yet. This is the purest bet on a story I've seen in a while.
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THE PATTERN: HARDWARE AT SOFTWARE PRICES
Six deals, all of them physical, and almost none of them showed their revenue.
Bedrock, Apex and Xona are priced at $2.45 billion to $4.1 billion on milestones: machines on job sites, satellites in orbit, a factory that can build 200 a year. Warhound is priced on a plan.
Tractian is the exception. It shared real revenue, $100 million, and its price came out at about 14 times that.
The speed is wild. Bedrock went up about 2.3 times in nine months. Apex is talking about 1.7 times in four months. Xona raised again in seven.
The pattern: investors are paying software multiples for hardware companies before the revenue shows up. A lot of that is defense money. Golden Dome, GPS jamming and military dogs all made the list this week.
For investors: Don't just ask whether the hardware works.
Ask when it ships at scale, and who's paying for it.
Mason's take: The two deals I like most are the boring ones. Tractian has $100 million in revenue, and Peak Energy has over $1 billion in orders. The rest might be great companies, but you're mostly paying for timelines that haven't happened yet. Hardware timelines slip a lot more often than software ones do.
Founderscrowd Newsletter | Wednesday, October 28, 2026 | Hardware at software prices
$4.1B for robot excavators. $4B for satellite buses. $1.2B for dogs that haven't been born.
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