Atom, a newly launched Japanese humanoid-robot developer, announced on May 27, 2026, a ¥3 billion seed round, according to Nikkei and BRIDGE. The round was co-led by independent venture capital firm ANRI, Beyond Next Ventures, and JAFCO Group.
Additional investors included ALPHA, JIC Venture Growth Investments, Sumitomo Corporation’s CVC arm Sumisho Venture Partners, Blue Lab, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and SMBC Venture Capital. The company was founded by a co-founder of autonomous-driving startup Turing.
Atom said it will use the capital to build out development capacity for “physical AI” and bipedal, dual-arm humanoid robots, targeting real-world deployment in manufacturing and logistics before establishing mass-production capability.
The unusually large seed for a domestic humanoid venture underscores rising appetite among Japanese corporates and CVCs for hardware-AI bets, amid a surge of policy attention on “physical AI.”