WSJ : Unicorn Startup That Makes ‘Superhuman’ Robots Plots Path to IPO

Unicorn Startup That Makes ‘Superhuman’ Robots Plots Path to IPO
With a $1.65 billion valuation, Dexterity has secured “unicorn” status

  • Dexterity, an AI unicorn startup valued at $1.65 billion, focuses on ‘superhumanoid’ robots for demanding and dangerous tasks.
  • The company partners with firms like FedEx and Kawasaki, aiming to ‘supercharge’ human workers rather than replace them.
  • Analysts project the humanoid market could reach $5 trillion by 2050, driven by labor shortages and the need for physical AI.

The robots are coming, but their arrival might be welcome if artificial-intelligence unicorn startup Dexterity has its way.

California-based Dexterity programs what it describes as “superhumanoids”: large industrial robots built to do physically demanding and dangerous tasks.

The aim, says founder and chief executive Samir Menon, isn’t to replace humans but to amplify them.

“You can try to do robotics in a way that you’re replacing people or you can try to do it in a way that you’re supercharging people,” the 40-year-old said in a recent interview on the sidelines of the ATxSummit in Singapore.

In the AI gold rush of the past years, the startup founded by Menon in 2017 has raked in millions in investment. At a $1.65 billion valuation, it’s secured “unicorn” status.

Dexterity’s robots, designed to operate at temperatures and altitudes unfriendly to humans, have attracted partnerships with U.S. delivery giant FedEx and Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. 8053 0.24%increase; green up pointing triangle

Dexterity’s robots are manufactured via partnerships with industrial veterans like Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries, which do the manufacturing. Its flagship offering, the Mech, is a roving, two-armed robot that can perform heavy lifting.

“They’re kind of inspired by ‘Transformers’ and ‘Pacific Rim’,” Menon said, in a nod to the Hollywood blockbusters starring giant robots.

Dexterity is currently fundraising and eventually wants to go public in the U.S.

Humanoid companies have been pulling in major investments in recent years. According to Crunchbase, six robotics companies became new unicorns last year. This year, more have joined the ranks, including The Bot Co., a robotics company focused on household chores which Crunchbase said was valued at $2 billion though it still hasn’t released a product.

With profitability for Dexterity still a few years away, Menon says he is prioritizing growth for now. Getting to the IPO stage rests on stable revenue streams and scaling the company, he said.

Menon’s upbeat on that front, seeing a not-too-distant future where industrial robots are commonplace in places like supermarkets and airports.

Market analysts agree. A recent report by Morgan Stanley projects that by 2050, the humanoids market will top $5 trillion. Over 1 billion humanoids could be in use by then, primarily in commercial and industrial settings, it said.

The parcel industry, retail and e-commerce sectors are already on the verge of mass adoption, said Menon, predicting take-up by large enterprises that will be “a great foundational step for physical AI.”

That doesn’t necessarily have to be bad news for the labor market, he said.

If robotics firms want to be non-disruptive, they will focus on making robots that are superhuman in size, strength, and can work in extreme heat and cold, said Menon, who holds a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University.

“You can build [robots] in a way that you’re copying the human shape, in which case it’s designed to replace a human,” he said. “It’s a strategic decision. We took the decision to do robotics in a way that supercharges people.”

Robots can help fill market gaps, the tech CEO argues.

In many developed societies, declining birthrates and longer lifespans mean shrinking workforces need to support growing retiree populations.

Bain & Company estimates that by 2030, the global shortage of manufacturing workers could reach nearly 8 million, boosting the need for robots to sustain economic growth. While humanoids won’t replace swaths of workers overnight, they will take a meaningful share of physical jobs as tech advances and costs fall, the consulting firm said in a report.

For Menon, worker deficits mean there is a way to introduce robots in markets like the U.S., Japan and Europe “in a non-disruptive manner.”

Big improvements in standards of living in certain developed markets help too, he added. “A lot of people don’t really want to do extremely low-paying, very stressful tasks.”

WSJ : WSJ : Malaysia’s MMC Port Plans to Meet Investors Before Up to $2.0 Billio

WSJ : Malaysia’s MMC Port Plans to Meet Investors Before Up to $2.0 Billion IPO
The company aims to fix its cornerstone investors by end-August

  • MMC Port Holdings will meet with investors from the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S. to raise up to $2.0 billion.
  • The company intends to secure its cornerstone investors by the end of August before launching its IPO.
  • MMC plans to list on Malaysia’s stock exchange either late in the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter.

Malaysian Port operator MMC Port Holdings will start meeting investors from the Middle East, Europe and the U.S. starting early next week, ahead of an initial public offering to raise up to $2.0 billion, people familiar with the process said.

The company aims to fix its cornerstone investors by end-August before launching the IPO to institutional and retail investors, these people said. It plans to list on Malaysia’s stock exchange by late in the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter of this year, they said.

Securing cornerstone investors before an IPO allows companies to market their offerings more effectively to both institutional and retail investors, especially with large deals.

MMC didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Earlier in the day, MMC submitted a draft prospectus for an IPO in Malaysia with plans to sell up to 4.27 billion shares.

MMC, incorporated in Malaysia in 2006, operates five major sea ports, a solid-product jetty terminal, and offers offshore ship-to-ship services.

FT : Peter Thiel joins tech billionaires backing new lender Erebor to rival Sili

Peter Thiel joins tech billionaires backing new lender Erebor to rival Silicon Valley Bank
Start-up named after the dragon’s mountain in ‘Lord of the Rings’

A group of tech billionaires led by Palmer Luckey, co-founder of military contractor Anduril, is preparing to launch a US bank intended to fill the gap left by Silicon Valley Bank serving start-ups, including cryptocurrency businesses.

To be named Erebor, the bank would be backed by high-profile tech investors including Joe Lonsdale, the founder of venture capital firm 8VC and a co-founder of Peter Thiel’s defence group Palantir, according to people familiar with the matter.

Thiel’s venture capital fund, Founders Fund, would also be among the investors, according to two people close to the matter.

Like Anduril and Palantir, Erebor’s name is a reference to JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Erebor is the “lonely mountain” whose treasures are reclaimed from the dragon Smaug.

Luckey and Lonsdale — who were big donors to Donald Trump in the 2024 US presidential election — want the bank to take over the niche once occupied by SVB as the go-to lender for riskier companies and cryptocurrency players that traditional banks might reject.

Erebor has applied for a national bank charter in the US, a licence that allows a financial institution to operate as a bank.

“The bank will be a national bank . . . providing traditional banking products, as well as virtual currency-related products and services, for businesses and individuals,” according to the application, made public this week.

Its target market would be businesses that were part of the US “innovation economy”, in particular tech companies focused on virtual currencies, artificial intelligence, defence and manufacturing, the filing said. It would also serve individuals who work for or invest in these companies.

It also planned to work with non-US companies “seeking access to the US banking system”.

Erebor’s co-founders first discussed launching a bank after the collapse of SVB in 2023, according to a person close to the matter. SVB had been the main bank for US start-ups and their venture capital backers.

Its assets were sold to First Citizens, which has since relaunched SVB, and a number of its bankers moved to HSBC in the US. But investors and executives complain about a gap in banking services for fledgling tech companies since SVB’s demise — with some start-ups struggling to get the same access to capital.

Erebor said in the filing it would “differentiate itself” by working with customers that “are not well served by traditional or disruptive financial institutions, in particular with respect to insufficient access to credit”.

Cryptocurrencies known as “stablecoins”, which are pegged to real-life assets such as the dollar, are expected to be a significant part of the bank’s operations. The application states Erebor aims to be “the most regulated entity conducting and facilitating stablecoin transactions”.

Luckey and Lonsdale were not expected to be involved in the day-to-day management of the bank, according to people familiar with their plans. It will be run by co-CEOs Jacob Hirshman, who previously worked as an adviser at crypto group Circle, and Owen Rapaport, co-founder and CEO of digital assets software company Aer Compliance. Mike Hagedorn, former senior executive vice-president at New Jersey-based Valley National Bank, will be the bank’s president.

Its head office will be in Columbus, Ohio, with an additional office in New York, but it will offer digital-only customer service, marketing all of its products and services via a smartphone app and website.

Part of the application was submitted confidentially and has not been made public, such as details relating to its shareholders, equity structure and business plan.

Luckey did not respond to a request for comment. Lonsdale confirmed he was a financial backer to the project but declined to comment further. Rapaport and a spokesperson for Thiel declined to comment. Hirshman and Hagedorn did not reply.

FT : US banks announce big shareholder payouts as Fed eases stress tests

US banks announce big shareholder payouts as Fed eases stress tests
Wall Street titans to raise dividends and buy back shares on back of lighter oversight

Investors reaped the rewards of looser bank supervision as Wall Street’s biggest banks announced a flood of shareholder payouts on Tuesday, after passing regulatory stress tests that imposed easier conditions than in years past.

JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and other banks said they would raise quarterly dividend payments to shareholders. JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley also said they would buy back billions of dollars' worth of their shares.

Goldman said it would raise its dividend 33 per cent. JPMorgan said it would increase its quarterly common stock dividend by 7 per cent in the next quarter.

Bank of America said it would raise its quarterly common stock dividend 8 per cent starting in the same quarter. Citi and BNY also said they would increase their dividends by 7 and 13 per cent, respectively.

JPMorgan said it would authorise the purchase of up to $50bn worth of its own shares while Morgan Stanley announced a buyback programme worth up to $20bn.

The higher payouts reflect what analysts and investors view as a less onerous regulatory environment for banks after more than a decade of tight restrictions in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

Bank share prices were little changed after the announcements on Tuesday, but have booked gains in recent days as investors absorbed news of the lighter stress test requirements.


The Federal Reserve last week confirmed that 22 banks — ranging from the largest ones such as JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs to smaller players including PNC and BNY — successfully passed annual tests assessing their resilience to potential economic and market crises.

Banks use the results to calculate the minimum level of capital that they need relative to their risk-adjusted assets — which in turn can influence the amount of excess capital they return to shareholders. Capital is used by banks to absorb losses.

This year’s stress tests were the first since the Fed loosened its scenario with a less severe theoretical recession than it used the previous year. While the new test was designed before US President Donald Trump retook office, it is in line with the looser banking regulation that his administration has championed.


Analysts at Morgan Stanley had said the Fed’s results were “even better than expected” as they flagged methodology changes that led to lower hypothetical losses including changes to the way the regulator measures private equity exposure.

“A New Era for Bank Regulation is here,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note to earlier this week.

The Fed said this year’s tests would push banks’ aggregate tier one capital ratio, their main cushion against losses, down by 1.8 percentage points — well below the 2.8-percentage-point fall in last year’s exercise.

The central bank is expected to provide clarity in coming weeks on whether it will begin to use an average of the past two years’ stress tests results to calculate banks’ capital requirements, a move that vice-chair for supervision Michelle Bowman said would help mitigate volatility in the results.

As part of a broader push to ease banking regulation, the Fed and two other watchdogs last week announced plans to slash the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio, which sets how much capital the biggest institutions need to have against their total assets.

FT : Donald Trump threatens to raise tariffs again on Japan

Donald Trump threatens to raise tariffs again on Japan
US president not intending to extend July 9 deadline before hitting trading partners with more levies

Donald Trump has threatened to increase levies on Japan and cast doubt that the US would reach a deal with its Asian ally, as he escalated his trade rhetoric days before his pause on some steep tariffs is set to expire.

The US president said he would impose new levies on countries that failed to agree a trade deal by July 9, when the “reciprocal” tariffs unleashed in April are set to resume. 

He also singled out Tokyo, a crucial trading partner that had been among the first countries to seek a deal with Trump after he shocked global markets in April by launching a global trade war on “liberation day”.

“We’ve dealt with Japan. I’m not sure we’re going to make a deal. I doubt it,” Trump said.

“I’ll write them a letter to say ‘we thank you very much, and we know you can’t do the kind of things that we need, and therefore you pay a 30 per cent, 35 per cent’ or whatever the number is that we determined,” he said. “Because we also have a very big trade deficit.”

The comments from the president suggested Trump remained willing to take a hard line on negotiations with trading partners, despite backing down on his higher global tariffs earlier this year in the face of deep market turmoil.

The US imposed a tariff of 24 per cent on all imports from Japan on Trump’s so-called liberation day on April 2, before temporarily lowering it to 10 per cent for 90 days to allow talks to take place. 

The threat to increase tariffs on the world’s fourth-largest economy will heighten fears that Trump will reignite a global trade war if his officials fail to line up countries before his own deadline next week.

Trump also told reporters on Air Force One on Tuesday that he was not considering extending next week’s deadline for any countries to allow talks to continue.

The US president announced a 90-day pause to his reciprocal tariffs in April after his trade war triggered a bout of severe market turmoil and a steep sell-off of US bonds.

Trump claimed at the time that he would sign 90 deals during the hiatus, although only the UK has struck a new trade agreement with the US.

Trump has accused Japan of being “spoiled” and refusing to commit to buying more American rice or to allow US-manufactured cars into its market.

Japan already faces a 10 per cent tariff on most of its exports to the US, but Japanese cars and car parts are also subject to a 25 per cent border tax tariff. Steel and aluminium face a 50 per cent levy.

US and Japanese trade officials have been locked in intense negotiations since earlier this year. Japan is slowly accepting that it will not be exempt from automotive tariffs, according to one person familiar with the talks, but it wants a guarantee that any deal struck will be final.

“Japan is digging its heels in with an insistence that the US agrees that, whatever the deal is, this really is it, and there will not be any further tariff hikes. Japanese companies need to know exactly what the tariff will be and start planning for that, and so Tokyo is negotiating for a deal that represents a covenant the US will stick to,” said the person.

Japanese markets fell on Wednesday, with the exporter-oriented Nikkei 225 index declining 1.2 per cent and the benchmark Topix losing 0.3 per cent. The yen edged down 0.1 per cent against the dollar to trade around ¥143.6.

US stocks ended Tuesday lower, with the S&P 500 down 0.1 per cent. The two-year Treasury yield, which moves inversely to prices, rose 0.05 percentage points to 3.78 per cent.

>>> US After Hours Summary: Lots of positive Fed Stress resullts from banks, inc

After Hours Summary: Lots of positive Fed Stress resullts from banks, including dividend hikes; CNC -23.7% lower after it withdraws guidance; VRNT +10.3% higher on Bloomberg report that Thoma Bravo in talks to acquire VRNT

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: GBX +12.3%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: VRNT +10.3% (Thoma Bravo in talks to acquire VRNT, according to Bloomberg), ACOG +6.6% (pre-clinical data for ALPHA-1062; stock offering by selling shareholders), HI +2.3% (completes divestiture of minority stake interest in TerraSource), AMPY +2% (sells non-operated working interest in its Eagle Ford assets), NVTS +1.9% (partnership with Powerchip), AWK +1.7% (announces two acquisitions), JPM +0.5% (Fed Stress Test results, to boost dividend, and $50 bln buyback auth), MS +0.3% (increases dividend; also authorizes renewed $20 bln share repurchase program), SAN +0.2% (Fed Stress Test results), PNC +0.2% (Fed Stress Test results, to increase dividend), TFC +0.1% (Fed Stress Test results), WFC +0.1% (Fed Stress Test results, to increase dividend), BK +0.1% (Fed Stress Test results, to increase dividend)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: CNC -23.7% (withdraws guidance after analyzing industry report), TTGT -10.9%, BV -10.5% (lowers FY25 revenue guidance), STZ -0.5%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: DFDV -7.8% ($100 mln convertible notes offering), AVBP -5.7% ($75 mln stock offering), HUM -1.9% (in sympathy with CNC earnings guidance withdrawal), BIGC -1.6% (names former Adobe exec to its Board), LOT -1.4% (acquires 100% equity interest of Lotus Advance Tech), SVRE -1.2% (files for 1.6 mln ADS offering by selling shareholder), UNH -1.2% (in sympathy with CNC earnings guidance withdrawal), LMT -0.4% (awarded a Missile Defense Agency contract with a ceiling of $2.97 bln), AXP -0.2% (Fed Stress Test results), SCHW -0.1% (Fed Stress Test results), PRGO -0.1% (announces strategic organizational update), COF -0.1% (Fed Stress Test results), GS -0.1% (Fed Stress Test results, to increase dividend)

>> US After Hours Summary: Lots of positive Fed Stress resullts from banks, incl

After Hours Summary: Lots of positive Fed Stress resullts from banks, including dividend hikes; CNC -23.7% lower after it withdraws guidance; VRNT +10.3% higher on Bloomberg report that Thoma Bravo in talks to acquire VRNT

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: GBX +12.3%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: VRNT +10.3% (Thoma Bravo in talks to acquire VRNT, according to Bloomberg), ACOG +6.6% (pre-clinical data for ALPHA-1062; stock offering by selling shareholders), HI +2.3% (completes divestiture of minority stake interest in TerraSource), AMPY +2% (sells non-operated working interest in its Eagle Ford assets), NVTS +1.9% (partnership with Powerchip), AWK +1.7% (announces two acquisitions), JPM +0.5% (Fed Stress Test results, to boost dividend, and $50 bln buyback auth), MS +0.3% (increases dividend; also authorizes renewed $20 bln share repurchase program), SAN +0.2% (Fed Stress Test results), PNC +0.2% (Fed Stress Test results, to increase dividend), TFC +0.1% (Fed Stress Test results), WFC +0.1% (Fed Stress Test results, to increase dividend), BK +0.1% (Fed Stress Test results, to increase dividend)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: CNC -23.7% (withdraws guidance after analyzing industry report), TTGT -10.9%, BV -10.5% (lowers FY25 revenue guidance), STZ -0.5%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: DFDV -7.8% ($100 mln convertible notes offering), AVBP -5.7% ($75 mln stock offering), HUM -1.9% (in sympathy with CNC earnings guidance withdrawal), BIGC -1.6% (names former Adobe exec to its Board), LOT -1.4% (acquires 100% equity interest of Lotus Advance Tech), SVRE -1.2% (files for 1.6 mln ADS offering by selling shareholder), UNH -1.2% (in sympathy with CNC earnings guidance withdrawal), LMT -0.4% (awarded a Missile Defense Agency contract with a ceiling of $2.97 bln), AXP -0.2% (Fed Stress Test results), SCHW -0.1% (Fed Stress Test results), PRGO -0.1% (announces strategic organizational update), COF -0.1% (Fed Stress Test results), GS -0.1% (Fed Stress Test results, to increase dividend)