The high cost of teaching robots
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🏈🏏🏀General Atlantic and 32 Equity, the private investment arm of the National Football League, are teaming up to invest in sports-related businesses. Seems like a good time to tell you about our map of PE and its ties to your favorite sports teams.
Plus: A new tech PE firm, the robot data gold rush and more ⬇️
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Startups are racing to collect the data needed to train robots, but collection costs remain high, customer requirements keep changing, and advances in robot learning could eventually reduce demand for the very data these companies sell.
Of the 27 data acquisition and teleoperation companies identified in PitchBook’s latest analysis of physical AI software and data infrastructure, 17 were founded between 2024 and 2026. The influx suggests founders are betting on a much larger market for collection services.
The economics remain challenging, though. Eidon, a robotics data startup that shut down in September after roughly two years, is a prime example. According to co-founder Sam Padilla, the company sold recordings for approximately $60 per hour, but hardware, shipping, quality assurance, and rejected recordings added substantial costs.
Scale presented another obstacle. Eidon collected roughly 3,000 hours over five months after deploying its first trackers, while prospective customers wanted comparable volumes monthly or even weekly. Customer specifications also changed, and equipment built for one collection program could quickly become less useful for the next.
The longer-term risk comes from improvements in robot learning itself. Models trained partly on human videos could require fewer robot demonstrations, while developers with growing fleets can increasingly collect their own operating data. Both developments could reduce demand for third-party collection even as the robotics market expands.
Software that makes existing data more useful may offer a better path. Tools that select training examples, adapt data across robots, or test models could generate recurring revenue without the costs of running large collection operations.
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It’s spooky season, and the dead may be ready to rise again: Q4 has opened with three announced software take-privates in Bumble, CCC Intelligent Solutions, and Varonis Systems.
As we wrote in our Q1 US PE Breakdown, the so-called SaaS-pocalypse handed adventurous PE buyers a chance to buy high-quality software businesses at depressed prices.
In that edition, we published the top names from our PitchBook Take-Private Predictor, which screens public companies for the fundamentals buyout investors typically look for in take-private targets.
At the time, our model predicted both Bumble and CCC as having an elevated chance of being targeted by buyout investors. Both companies have since agreed to be acquired—Bumble by newly formed holding company Ithaca Holdings and CCC Intelligent Solutions by a consortium led by PE firm GTCR.
Curious to see which companies our model says are most likely to be taken private as of Sept. 30? Software still dominates, with 26 of the top 30 names, and two of them, Bumble and Varonis, are already spoken for.
- Data centers are struggling down under. Firmus canceled what would have been one of Australia’s biggest IPOs, and now NextDC cut its annual revenue and earnings forecast, with shares falling 41.7%. [Fortune]
- Espresso vending machines were a big bet for Coca-Cola, and it isn’t paying off. The company’s $5 billion acquisition of Costa Coffee hinged on its reach in the grab-and-go market. [Bloomberg]
- People will want to own their autonomous cars, says GM’s Sterling Anderson, who oversees the company’s next generation of electric and autonomous vehicles. Rather than deploying robotaxis, Anderson wants to focus on privately owned AVs. [Financial Times]
Nvidia is in talks to invest in Australia-based data center company Firmus, which canceled its IPO earlier this month, The Information reported.
Fireworks AI, an AI infrastructure startup, is in talks to raise a new round at a $30 billion to $40 billion valuation, Business Insider reported.
Stockholm-based legal AI startup Legora raised a $550 million Series E led by Atreides Management at an $8.8 billion valuation.
Pigment, a Paris-based agentic AI startup for enterprise business planning, raised a $250 million Series E at a $2.3 billion valuation led by Scaleup Europe Fund.
Online marketplace developer Whop raised a $200 million Series D led by Sequoia and Shopify Ventures at a $5.1 billion valuation.
Civil engineering software developer Mach9 secured a $34 million Series A led by First Round Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners.
Optivolt, a startup specializing in smart solar systems, received a $32 million Series A led by VXI Capital.
Iceland-based biopharma startup Arctic Therapeutics secured a $21.5 million round led by Pekron, Sanos Group, Kaldbakur and Landvættir.
Longeye, the developer of an investigative workspace for justice agencies, secured a $20 million Series A led by N47.
London-based Hephaestus, a fusion energy startup, emerged from stealth with $17.2 million including a round led by CiRi Ventures.
Dutch photonics startup Photon Bridge secured €10 million in a round led by the Amadeus APEX Technology Fund and 360 Capital.
Skyfly Technologies, a UK-based developer of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, raised a $10 million seed round led by HICO Investment Group.
Thoma Bravo is considering a sale of J.D. Power, a consumer intelligence software company, seeking a $6.5 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported. The firm previously tried to exit J.D. Power in 2024.
Coatue- and Hillhouse-backed data center operator DayOne Data Centers is considering shrinking or delaying its planned US IPO, Bloomberg reported.
VVDN Technologies, a provider of engineering, software and manufacturing services backed by Motilal Oswal Private Equity, is considering an India IPO that could raise up to $300 million, Bloomberg reported.
Warburg Pincus is considering a sale of China-based car park management company Sunsea Parking Industry Group, Bloomberg reported.
London-based Pantheon closed its Pantheon Global Secondaries Fund VIII and related vehicles on $6 billion, exceeding its $3.5 billion target.
Advent International opened a new Abu Dhabi office, marking its first expansion into the Middle East.
Ares Management established a European logistics investment partnership with Norges Bank Investment Management, backed by a €1.5 billion equity commitment from Norges Bank, to target modern logistics assets across Europe.
Energy and healthcare posted significant increases in deal value in Q3 2026, though the latter’s share of total M&A value remains steady. The strength in energy reflects the power demands of data centers while healthcare’s gains are driven by the need for specialized care assets and pharmaceutical services.
Read more: Q3 2026 Global M&A Report
