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Capital Is Flooding Into The Physical AI Revolution
AI is stepping out of the screen and into the physical world. Robotics VC deals hit record highs in early 2026: nearly $16B across 450+ deals.
Labor shortages, aging workforces and breakthroughs from NVIDIA, Tesla and specialized suppliers are accelerating automation in factories and warehouses worldwide.
Our free guide breaks down the 6 investable robotics subsectors driving the buildout, from AI compute and machine vision to humanoid robots. Enter your email and we’ll send it straight to your inbox.
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The job is to say no. But sometimes, the diligence is excessive.
I am finding more and more that some VC’s are doing so much diligence that they are just digging for reasons to say no. At the seed stage and pre-seed stage, there is only so much diligence, back and forth, debating, pontificating, and lunches/dinners/coffees you can do with a founder. Eventually you just gotta go with your gut. Good investors know in the first meeting if they like the idea and the founder. Diligence is necessary. Dig into assumptions, forecasts, talk to people that know the founder, talk to investors in the deal or who invested in the founder in the past, but eventually either say Yes or No.
The worst is the VC who goes quiet, cold, or ghosts. Never closes the loop. Never gives any real reason or feedback. Your brand and your perception in the market are everything. Founders talk. End it one way or the other. There is really no excuse in the era of AI. Have your agent scan your inbox and say no politely to investing in anything you haven’t responded to in weeks. If you don’t wake up thinking about the new deal and opportunity, then it’s probably not a deal for you.
I am seeing VCs hunting for a reason to say no. Dragging early-stage diligence on for weeks or months. If this is your process, so be it. But eventually founders are gonna find other investors with conviction that let them get back to building and that ultimately don’t waste their time. The flip side is if these funds get to conviction after months of diligence and then the founder says, actually, this process with you has sucked, and I am going another direction. Now you, as an investor, wasted your time. The cap table and the board dynamics are so key to founder success. We have to remember founders are picking investors just like investors are picking founders.
All that being said, investors seem gun-shy right now because AI and mega funds are crowding and piling money into fewer deals. The non-consensus investors are dwindling. Social Leverage is continuing to do what we do best. Work with the best founders, provide feedback one way or another, and following our conviction. We do deals with others or by ourselves, but we roll up our sleeves and dig in daily. The markets are volatile, but the best thing about early-stage investing is that we can think 10 years out and not have to deal with the ups and downs of the market. I lived the hedge fund life for 10 years, so as much as I look at it every day still, at least it doesn’t directly change a startup day-to-day.
