We’re not investing nearly enough in robotics, says a major venture capital firm, as it notes that last year 90% of all humanoid robots built and shipped were from China.
“In the past five years, 745 software companies have raised more than $30M,” says a new report from Bessemer Venture Partners. “The equivalent figure for robotics is 42—18 times fewer funded companies in a sector where the underlying market is 30 times larger than software spend globally.”
Most analysts predict 50X growth in the robotics space over the decade, the report adds, and “there will be 100,000x more robots on Earth in the next 10-20 years,” says Jeremy Levine, a partner at Bessemer.
That alone points to a structurally under-invested ecosystem, but there’s yet another factor: geopolitics.
As the report mentions and as I’ve covered previously, almost 90% of all humanoid robots shipped in 2025 were made in China. That’s staggering domination, even though the humanoid space is young and still developing. In ecosystem mapping that I’ve personally done, it’s clear that the vast majority of humanoid robotics companies are headquartered in China: I’ve found 161 in China while the United States has far fewer.
(One caveat: it’s important to note that humanoids make up only a fraction of the entire robotics space. They just happen to be currently the sexiest and most-hyped sector.)
Bessemer highlights that Chinese domination here is a problem militarily, adding that “nations have reached a conclusion that’s becoming impossible to ignore: robotics fundamentally changes the nature of modern warfare.”
Other predictions from the Bessemer report:
- The ChatGPT moment for robotics is coming
When ChatGPT hit, it made AI instantly relevant and instantly viral. That hasn’t happened for robotics yet, but it’s coming soon - Scaled robotics companies with capital will win
Data is critical for improving robot performance, and it’s expensive to get. Larger robotics companies with larger fleets will get more data quicker than others, and improve more rapidly. - A small number of robotics companies will win: “not 50”
Talent concentration is going to drive a small number of winners in the robotics ecosystem … fewer than 50 major winners, according to Bessemer. - Full-stack players will capture the most value
In LLMs, foundation model companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are capturing most of the value. In robotics, Bessemer says that full-stack players who have vertically integrated software and hardware will get the biggest. - Defense robotics companies will have the biggest exits
Defense companies will have the first $50 billion IPOs in the robotics space, Bessemer says, citing Anduril and Saronic, which makes autonomous ships. - There is no robotics bubble
With growth projections in the 50X range, we’re actually under-investing in robotics, Bessemer says.
Overall, Bessemer is extremely bullish on the future of robotics. But there’s a long way to go. Reliability and capability remain question marks, and we need much more data to improve both.
“We are nowhere near ‘solving’ the data problem in robotics,” says Lisa Yan, CEO of Argus Systems. “My experience at Waymo taught me that real-world deployment uncovers harder, more specialized data curation and labeling problems over time. Closing the gap between 99% and 99.9% reliability is a steep hill climb that takes longer than most people realize.”
Success won’t be instant, in spite of flashy robotic dances or impressive times in a humanoid robot half-marathon.
“Timelines are a lot longer than most people expect,” says Philipp Wu, who is cofounding a robotics company that is still in stealth mode. “General-purpose robotics is still five-plus years out.”
