The Startups Leading Europe's Robotics Moment

Welcome to Viewpoints, news and investment activity covering the next era of computing - brought to you by FOV Ventures.

This Month:

• Six Shifts Shaping 2026: Our investment themes

• 10 European robotics startups to watch at the pre-seed stage

• Vantage Point: Robotics Edition coming to London in March

Dave Haynes, Petri Rajahalme, Sointu Karjalainen & David Ripert (FOV Ventures)

At FOV, we've been persistently focused on a set of truly transformative technologies that seemed like science fiction just a few years ago - AI, robotics, and spatial computing. Now they're simultaneously reaching maturity and creating massive new opportunities.

Physical AI and robotics have shifted from theoretical possibilities to practical realities. We've moved from the "wow" phase of seeing a robot walk to the "how" phase of making it industrial-grade. The frontier tech of yesterday is becoming the infrastructure of today.

We just published our investment focus for 2026 across these key themes. While some areas race ahead with major leaps arriving weekly, others are recalibrating and moving away from the hype machine toward real deployments.

Robotics and physical AI is one of the natural evolutions of our long-held thesis - the shrinking gap between the digital and physical realms, and the application of AI beyond our 2D screens (and chat windows).

As we outlined in the piece above, robotics in 2025 saw VC investment rebound sharply - but the majority of capital went into the same three ideas: robot brains, robot training, and humanoids.

Now, as foundation models commoditise, alpha has moved to the fringe — incl. vertical-focused solutions solving specific problems exceptionally well.

Europe's robotics renaissance in these areas is being built in small teams, early labs, and first production pilots across the continent. While most attention flows to later-stage humanoids, the next breakout companies are forming much earlier - at pre-seed, where new architectures and software stacks are still fluid.

We're deep in this space, so we wanted to spotlight what we're seeing on the ground. We published 10 Early-Stage European Robotics Startups to Watch for 2026 = mostly pre-seed, all deeply technical, building full physical-intelligence stacks from perception to deployment. These teams are moving beyond demos toward systems designed to survive factories, logistics sites, and contested real-world environments.

FOV NEWS

VANTAGE POINT: Robotics Edition 2026

We're hosting VANTAGE POINT: Robotics Edition on March 25th in London - a curated summit bringing together leading founders, investors, and strategic partners at the frontier of robotics and embodied AI.

The half-day program features keynotes, fireside chats, curated startup pitches, and matchmaking sessions designed for signal over noise. We're prioritising thoughtful dialogue, high-quality deal flow, and long-term relationships.

This early registration phase is limited to VCs, LPs, angels, and partners only. Attendance is by approval to maintain a highly curated guest list.

Powered by Venture Café London.

For partnership enquiries: [email protected]

FOV PORTFOLIO NEWS

• Doublepoint announced two major products at CES 2026: a $249 developer kit with partners STMicroelectronics, ams OSRAM, and Ambiq (available for pre-order now), and WowPlay, a consumer-ready WearOS app for everyday music and media control. (more)

• M-XR introduced Marso AI, a game-ready asset platform that generates production-grade PBR textures from any 3D model, powered by their foundational model trained with PBR data from Marso Measure - built with technical artists to deliver a full game-ready asset workflow. (more)

• Graswald continued their strong 2025 momentum, becoming a critical workflow tool in fashion as they work toward a true operating system for fashion that supports brands from early creative ideation to final publish-ready assets. (more)

• GEEIQ launches The State of Brands in Virtual Worlds 2026, a report mapping how brands actually operate across gaming and virtual platforms based on observed behavior, not opinion—register to receive it first when it launches next week. (more)

• Distance Technologies unveiled the Field Operator HUD—a lightweight, glasses-free XR system that integrates with existing soldier helmets to give defense vehicle operators the same tactical advantage as advanced fighter-pilot helmets. (more)

• nunu.ai launched PR Testing Agents, enabling fully autonomous end-to-end tests directly inside GitHub Pull Requests that interact with products like real users—reaching 85% issue detection compared to 30% with traditional PR bots, solving the QA bottleneck as AI coding tools accelerate development. (more)

• IXI signed a letter of intent with Atol and Vizio, two leading optical groups representing 3,000+ stores in France, to explore commercial pilots for their autofocus eyewear and jointly develop the optical retail experience around how opticians can best introduce autofocus technology. (more)

FOV JOB BOARD

Open Roles at Portfolio Companies:

• AI Coustics is hiring across their Berlin team with 10 roles spanning Systems Software Engineer (Rust), Developer Relations, Audio ML Data Engineer, Backend Developer, Digital Audio Signal Processing Engineer, Audio Data Infrastructure Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineer, ML PhD Internship, Junior IT Operations Engineer, and ML Research Engineer. (apply)

• Spogen.ai has a QA & Data Specialist position (Entry Level, €2,500-4k/month) open across Oregon, Atlanta, and Bucaramanga, Colombia. (apply)

• Pixieray is seeking a Digital Channels & Growth Manager (Mid-Senior Level) across Espoo (Finland), Washington DC, and Lehi (Utah). (apply)

• GEEIQ is hiring an Account Executive (Mid-Senior Level) in London, UK. (apply)

• Levtek has a Senior Mechanical Engineer position open in Malmö, Sweden. (apply)

• Atopia Space is seeking an SDR / Outbound Sales Freelancer (Entry Level, Remote or Munich). (apply)