Genki Robotics, the Tokyo-based humanoid robotics startup co-founded by Andy Rubin (creator of Android), reached a $1 billion valuation in its Series A funding round following a $50 million seed in 2025. The rapid scaling reflects venture capital’s hunger for robotics plays in an environment where labor costs are rising and AI inference costs are falling.

Rubin’s pedigree matters here because it signals legitimacy to LPs unfamiliar with robotics timelines and technical debt. A founder who built Android at Google and oversaw the Pixel hardware transition has institutional credibility. Investors assume competence and execution capability rather than demanding proof. That assumption is often wrong—most robotics startups fail in the hardware-software integration phase—but it is the assumption that deposits capital into bank accounts.