🌗🔥 The Humanoids are Coming

Hello and welcome to the Moonfire newsletter.

At Moonfire Pulse 25, you told us how much you loved the robotics panel. Our founders and industry experts shared bold perspectives on where this revolution is heading in the near, medium, and long term.

We’ve been digging into the same question: what’s driving humanoids from science fiction to the shop floor, and why now?

We also have some exciting new investment and portfolio news.

Enjoy.

Mattias and the Moonfire team
🌓🔥

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The Snapshot

Here's a quick roundup of interesting stuff we saw this summer:

• China’s first humanoid robot soccer league kicks off in Beijing
• Nano Banana releases an eerily good new image generator
• Why enterprise adoption of AI is happening faster than predicted

The Humanoid Robotics Revolution

The dream of building robots in our own image is moving from sci-fi script to shop floor. Humanoids are no longer confined to research labs, they’re beginning to appear in warehouses, hospitals, and even homes.

What’s driving this sudden shift?

A perfect storm of technological and social forces is at play.

4 powerful trends

4 powerful trends are converging to accelerate humanoid robotics:

1. Smarter, more adaptable AI.
2. Hardware that’s cheaper and more powerful.
3. Unprecedented levels of investment.
4. Demographic shifts putting pressure on labour supply.

The implications are huge: machines that never tire, ready to take on the kinds of repetitive, hazardous, or physically demanding tasks that humans increasingly can’t (or won’t) do. With Europe’s dependency ratio projected by the UN to climb to around 65% by 2030, the timing couldn’t be more critical.

Software is the unlock

But the real breakthrough is happening inside their “brains” where a quiet revolution is unfolding: humanoids are learning to adapt, improvise, and collaborate in real time. Thanks to advanced simulation environments, they can practise thousands of lifetimes’ worth of tasks before ever touching the physical world.

What does this mean for industries, and for all of us? The answer could be as transformative as the arrival of the PC or the smartphone. The big question now is not if humanoids will arrive, but how fast they’ll reshape our world. But what will it take to get there? Safety, cost, and social acceptance are still hurdles, and that’s where the next chapter begins.

Keep reading

We made the rise of adaptable robots a central theme at Pulse 2025. Are we headed for a ‘ChatGPT moment’ in robotics?

Watch Pulse 25 panel - The Rise of Adaptable Robots here

News

It may have been summer, but things at Moonfire and across our companies have been anything but quiet.

New Investments

• Weave: AI-driven analytics helping engineering teams measure real output. Backed by Y Combinator, with strong early traction and a seasoned founding team. Explore Weave →
• MokN: An innovative “Phish Back” solution tackling credential theft head-on from a cyber pioneer. Learn about MokN →
• Bloom: A no-code app builder letting anyone create and share full-stack native mobile apps directly from their phones. Build with Bloom →

Portfolio Milestones

• Liveflow: Now trusted by 5,000+ businesses to simplify, streamline and automate financial operations. The team has launched FinanceIQ - an AI-powered tool that helps finance teams budget, forecast, and monitor performance in real time. Like having a dedicated finance analyst monitoring your numbers around the clock. See FinanceIQ in action →
• Healthtech 1. Now live in 23% of UK GP practices and celebrating 2 million patient registrations automated - a huge step toward transforming frontline healthcare. See the vision →

Team News

Jonas Vetterle has been promoted to Head of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning at Moonfire. Jonas has been instrumental in shaping our technical direction over the past four years, and this new role reflects the importance of AI and ML in everything we do. Learn about Jonas' role →

Watchlist

On Wednesday, 1 October, we’re gathering our portfolio CTOs and Engineering Leads at Civo Tech Junction for the Moonfire Technical Founder Summit (invitation-only).

Building an AI start-up means tough choices about cloud computing and those choices can shape everything from your burn rate to your product roadmap.

To guide the way, Moonfire’s Mike Arpaia has drawn on his extensive network in technology infrastructure to craft a summit focused on helping our founders scale smarter and faster, including an exciting keynote address from cloud computing visionary, Kelsey Hightower.

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That’s all for this newsletter.

Until next time, all the best,

Mattias and the Moonfire team
🌓🔥