Generalist, a robotics startup that until recently was operating with the stealth of a spy agency, has now reached a $3 billion valuation after raising additional capital led by 8VC, according to two people with knowledge of the funding. Because why not? Everyone else is doing it.

The fresh capital totals nearly $200 million, according to a regulatory filing. That's a nice extension of the $400 million Series B led by Radical Ventures that the company announced in June at a $2 billion valuation. So the round's total now stands at a cool $600 million, which is either a lot of money or just a Tuesday in Silicon Valley.

Generalist and 8VC didn't respond to a request for comment, probably because they were too busy counting their billions.

Founded in 2024 by former Google DeepMind researchers Pete Florence and Andy Zeng, along with former Boston Dynamics engineer Andrew Barry, Generalist received early backing from 8VC, Radical Ventures, Nvidia, Union Square Ventures, Bezos Expeditions, and AI researcher Fei-Fei Li. So, you know, a few small names.

Generalist is developing an AI foundation model that can work with various robots. Its newly released Gen 1.5 model enables robots to master new tasks from video demonstrations as short as 3 to 12 seconds long. That's faster than most humans learn to use a new smartphone.

The startup is working with a handful of customers, using their feedback to tailor the model for specific use cases, according to one source. Because nothing says 'general' like customizing for each client.

Generalist isn't alone in its quest to build a brain for a broad range of robots. Competitors include Physical Intelligence (reportedly valued at $11 billion), SoftBank-backed Skild AI (valued at $14 billion), and Genesis AI (in talks to raise capital at a $3 billion valuation as of last month). It's like a high-stakes game of Monopoly, but with robots and actual billions.

The funding surge reflects a bet from some investors that robotics may soon reach its own 'ChatGPT moment,' meaning robots will be able to perform general tasks without being explicitly trained for each one. However, because robots cannot be trained on the entirety of the internet's data the way LLMs can, some VCs warn that a truly general robotics model may still be years away. So, we'll just have to wait for our robot overlords a bit longer.