Path Robotics has raised $300 million in Series E funding at a $2.45 billion post-money valuation, making it one of the largest bets yet on physical AI for manufacturing. Georgian led the round, with participation from investors including Addition, Drive Capital, Tiger Global, Yamaha Motor Ventures, D. E. Shaw Ventures, and NAVER Ventures. BusinessWire reported

The company began by automating welding, one of the hardest tasks to hand over to traditional industrial robots. Welding environments are variable: parts move, joints differ, conditions change, and factories cannot always rely on the rigid paths that conventional automation requires. Path’s Obsidian system is designed to let robots identify weld joints, plan the work, execute the weld, and adjust to changing conditions.

Path says its annual recurring revenue has grown 17-fold over the past 18 months. It counts large manufacturers such as HII, Lockheed Martin, and Saronic among its customers, alongside mid-sized industrial companies. Earlier this year, it announced a $600 million performance-based agreement with HII to deploy physical AI across U.S. Navy shipbuilding programs.

The new funding will support expansion beyond welding into additional factory tasks, robotic forms, compute capacity, and AI-model training. Path has also introduced Rove, a mobile robotic welding system that puts its AI welding technology onto a quadruped platform. The idea is to bring the robot to the part instead of requiring the part to be positioned perfectly for a fixed machine.

This matters because manufacturing is facing several pressures at once: skilled-labour shortages, demand for faster production, reshoring efforts, defence capacity needs, and ageing industrial infrastructure. AI-powered robotics is increasingly being pitched as a way to expand output without waiting years to find and train enough workers.

Of course, raising money and proving a few deployments is not the same as transforming every factory. Industrial sales cycles are long, integration is difficult, and manufacturers will demand clear evidence on uptime, safety, maintenance, and return on investment.

Still, Path Robotics reminds us that some of the biggest AI opportunities may not be in apps. They may be in factories, shipyards, warehouses, and infrastructure projects where intelligent machines can take on work that software alone cannot.

Owen Lacore

Path Robotics Raises $300 Million to Bring AI Deeper Into American Factories