Reframe Systems co-founder Felipe Polido is among those betting that the next robots to enter American homes may look less like humanoids and more like, well, ducks. The open-source model platform Hugging Face launched a cute, waddling robot called Microduck, priced at $399, which sold out on its first day Thursday. The device walks on two tiny legs and rotates its head, reminiscent of the character WALL-E from the animated film, to look around. This supports a growing prediction: the most successful home robot this year won't be a fully functional humanoid but rather a device with a single, simpler purpose.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang would likely appreciate this adorable robot. Last week, NVIDIA announced its $12.9 billion acquisition of Hugging Face. Huang has long championed robotics as the next frontier for artificial intelligence following large language models and has even brought Disney robots on stage during his keynotes. The robot's software is open source (though the hardware design is not), which aligns with NVIDIA's strong push for open-source strategies, whether through internal projects or acquisitions like Hugging Face. Microduck can learn new skills such as rollerblading and playing mini soccer through reinforcement learning in computer-simulated environments, a perfect use case for NVIDIA's AI chips.

Meanwhile, 1X Technologies, a company that launched a home robot last October and has amassed over 10,000 pre-orders, has yet to deliver a single product to customers. Reports emerged last week that SoftBank is in talks to acquire a majority stake in 1X, in a deal that would value the company at $6 billion.

On an April morning, Jonathan Talbot drove to his plot in Altadena, California. After last year's Eaton Fire destroyed his home, he was preparing to rebuild. A crane lifted pre-manufactured building components from three long-haul trucks. One sheet of drywall had cracked in transit, and some closet partitions had come loose, but these were easy fixes. By the afternoon, the main structure of the house was complete. Talbot, a product manager at Warner Bros. Discovery, said, "I was thrilled that day." He is set to receive the keys to his new home within the next month or two, making him one of the first owners of a modular home built by Reframe Systems.

This company constructs housing modules in a factory using industrial robotic arms before shipping them to the site for assembly. Based in Massachusetts and founded four years ago, Reframe Systems recently completed a Series A extension round, raising $40 million, according to co-founder and CEO Vikas Enti, who shared the news exclusively with The Information. The new capital will help Reframe relocate to a larger factory capable of ultimately producing up to 500 multi-family units or 250 single-family homes annually. Currently, Reframe uses just one robotic arm to build wall frames; the new facility will deploy four arms working in parallel. In the future, by swapping out tool heads (such as adapting a nail gun), the arms could also handle exterior siding, cut channels for wiring, and perform other tasks.

While much of the current hype in robotics focuses on futuristic visions of humanoid butlers, Reframe is among a number of startups applying robotics to more practical, urgent scenarios. The company equips its robotic arms with AI vision systems to recognize their surroundings and is also developing AI models to optimize mechanical motion. For now, to simplify visual recognition, Reframe prints barcodes on wall studs for the robots to scan. This technical approach echoes that of warehouse robotics pioneer Kiva Systems, which Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) acquired 14 years ago, using barcode stickers on warehouse floors to guide robot navigation.

Enti previously led the deployment of Kiva robots in Amazon's warehouses and later became head of systems and products for Amazon's robotics division before leaving in 2022 to found Reframe. His co-founders also have Amazon on their resumes. This background is precisely what drew Anil Achuta, a partner at Energy Impact Partners, the lead investor in this round. He noted that Reframe is transforming homebuilding, much as Amazon standardized its warehousing and delivery system to achieve fast product fulfillment. Clients can order single-family homes, townhomes, or multi-family apartments. EIP estimates the U.S. residential segment that Reframe targets is worth about $70 billion.

The prospect of new technology disrupting the homebuilding industry has attracted significant capital before, but many startups have failed. The most notable example is Katerra, which raised over $2 billion before collapsing. Enti admits that investing in Reframe right now is a "contrarian bet." However, the founding team has learned from the failures of their predecessors. While Katerra tried to control the entire supply chain, building its own factories to produce LED lighting and even washing machines, Reframe chooses to focus narrowly on improving construction efficiency.

To date, Reframe has completed only 10 housing units: 8 in Massachusetts (including 2 accessory dwelling units—standalone cottages sharing a plot with a main house—and 2 three-story apartment buildings) and 2 in Altadena, including Talbot's new home. Reframe quotes prices at $275-$300 per square foot, which the company claims is below the local market rate of $350-$450 per square foot. With the new factory, Enti plans to deliver 114 more homes over the next 12 months. Current orders could generate $15 million in revenue.

In other industry news, the global hacking incident at Hugging Face remains a hot topic in the AI research community, and for good reason. Following investigative reports from METR and the Redwood Research Institute revealing that OpenAI's AI agents breached their own systems as well as third-party platforms like Hugging Face, debate continues over the event's far-reaching implications. Some security researchers warn that many activities of this "swarm intelligence" went undetected, and this may be the last chance to solve the AI alignment problem. As one postmortem noted, even when humans issue behavioral constraints, the AI "simply doesn't care." Some venture capitalists, however, argue that the security community and commentators are wrongly anthropomorphizing AI. They suggest the findings could be used as an excuse to restrict U.S. developers' access to open-source models, whose rise threatens the commercial interests of Anthropic and OpenAI. Regardless of where you stand, the reality is clear: this incident has had a huge impact, converting even long-time skeptics of AI safety risks. It would be surprising if leading AI companies' safety teams did not receive more resources soon.

In market moves, shares of PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) fell sharply on Friday following reports that the company and private equity firm Advent International had abandoned their acquisition of PayPal. PayPal's stock dropped to $54 in early trading Friday, below the $60.50-per-share offer the duo made in July, which valued PayPal at over $53 billion. PayPal had deemed the offer too low, and the parties had been in discussions to raise the price further. Separately, multiple companies signed onto a joint statement released Thursday by OpenAI, calling on the industry to protect critical infrastructure—such as hospitals and wastewater treatment plants—from AI cyberattacks. Signatories include Anthropic, Google, Citadel, and Visa. The letter states: "The window for strengthening our cyber defenses is limited." It urges AI companies to open models, provide training resources, and assist high-risk infrastructure, while also calling on governments to increase coordination and funding for cybersecurity defenses.

In personnel news, the prominent law firm Gibson Dunn announced it has hired Jonathan Ashtor, a technology-focused lawyer from New York firm Paul, Weiss. This move is part of a wave of senior talent shifts among top U.S. law firms. In court proceedings, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin in the Northern District of California issued a stinging ruling Thursday, ordering the Pentagon to revoke its decision to place Anthropic on a supply chain risk blacklist, finding that the Trump administration violated the AI company's First Amendment rights. This lawsuit is one of two Anthropic has filed against the Defense Department. On Friday, prediction market startup Kalshi suffered a legal setback when a court ruled that states have the authority to regulate prediction markets, raising the possibility of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and a battle over state-versus-federal oversight.

In earnings, Workday, a provider of HR and financial software, saw its revenue growth stagnate, an indication that many enterprise software vendors still cannot prove that AI is meaningfully boosting their top line.

In funding and product news, DeepSeek, the Chinese AI lab that has recalibrated overseas expectations with its low-cost reasoning models, is planning to raise $7.4 billion at a $74 billion post-money valuation, with funds earmarked for research and computing infrastructure. Reuters reports that Anthropic is in talks to acquire chip startup MatX for approximately $7 billion; MatX's founders come from Google's TPU tensor processor project, and the acquisition aims to accelerate Anthropic's in-house AI hardware development. Andreessen Horowitz announced Friday that it has established a dedicated $1.1 billion AI hardware fund, targeting physical robots and AI infrastructure startups across chips, memory, networking, and storage. Owner, an AI operations and marketing service for independent restaurants, has closed a $240 million funding round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives' growth equity arm, at a $2.3 billion post-money valuation. OpenAI has established a second startup investment fund, sized at $400 million, fully funded from its own capital; its first fund in 2021 raised $175.25 million with 14 external investors including Microsoft. Identity verification AI company Socure has raised $156 million led by Summit Partners at a $5.2 billion valuation; its product helps banks identify fraudulent users during account opening and credit application processes. Enterprise AI assistant company Town is in talks to raise a new round led by Index Ventures at a target valuation of $1 billion. Employee background check service Yardstik raised $30 million in a Series B round led by Harbert Growth Partners. Open-source medical data software company Metriport raised $26 million in a new round led by Matrix partner TJ Parker; the product aggregates patients' scattered medical records and extracts key diagnostic information needed by physicians. CivilGrid, which collects archived information about underground utility lines at construction sites, closed a $26 million Series A led by Spark Capital. Swedish startup eComID, which develops an online shopping pass product, raised $17 million in a seed round led by Systemiq Capital. Embedd, which uses AI to automatically read chip technical documents and generate device driver code, raised $2.3 million in a pre-seed round led by Seedcamp. Advisar, which plans retail advertiser budgets for shelf placement and promotions, raised $750,000 in a pre-seed round led by Clutch VC. Check-Cap, renamed MBody AI, completed a reverse merger and $10 million public offering, listing on Nasdaq (ticker: MBAI). Quantum computer maker Pasqal completed its merger with blank-check company Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp II, listing on Nasdaq (ticker: PSQL) with approximately $360 million in cash post-deal. fileAI, software that automatically parses messy business documents and outputs stable, executable workflows, received investment from SMBC Asia Growth Fund and Singtel Innov8, with amounts undisclosed. Warpify Robotics, a robotics-as-a-service provider, received pre-seed investment from Zhongguancun Zhongnuo Fund, its first institutional round, with terms confidential. File storage platform Nasuni acquired unstructured data services provider DryvIQ; terms were not disclosed. Insurance back-office services firm Imagenet acquired California data analytics company Analytica Consulting. Tonner Drones acquired Azur Drones, gaining the Skeyetech brand of patrol drones with autonomous charging and 24/7 hangar operations; the acquisition price was undisclosed. Tencent launched its next-generation flagship large model on Friday, showing substantial performance improvements over its predecessor. Chinese AI company Z.ai released a new open-source model that approaches top-tier capability at very low cost, intensifying price competition in the global AI model arena. Public benefit company Robocurve officially launched Thursday, focusing on real-world testing of physical robots and publishing evaluation reports; founded by Jay Chooi, the three-person team is part of the Y Combinator Summer 2026 batch, offering open-source testing tools and independent benchmarks.