{"rows":[{"company":"Persona AI","hq_country":"United States","website":"https://persona.ai/","status":"active","what_it_builds":"Houston-based developer of purpose-built humanoid robots for heavy industry, starting with shipyard welding under an MOU with HD KSOE and HD Hyundai Robotics (prototypes targeted end 2026, commercial deployment from 2027).","what_it_builds_source":"https://persona.ai/why-persona/","founded_year":"2024","founded_source":"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/persona-ai-raises-27m-oversubscribed-131500748.html","funding_usd":"92360000","funding_basis":"disclosed rounds","funding_source":"https://runtimewire.com/article/persona-ai-sells-65m-planned-142m-humanoid-robot-offering","funding_note":"Summed: (1) 2025-05-14, $27,000,000, pre-seed, company press release https://finance.yahoo.com/news/persona-ai-raises-27m-oversubscribed-131500748.html ; (2) 2026-09-14 (Form D filing date; sale dates not seen), $65,360,000 sold toward a planned $141.96M offering, 46 investors, press-reported via https://runtimewire.com/article/persona-ai-sells-65m-planned-142m-humanoid-robot-offering (I did not open the SEC filing itself; amount is press-reported). Excluded: a social-media/news claim of $42M pre-seed in 2025 (https://dev.to/dan_ledger_ce2886f0037972/2026-01-02-daily-robotics-news-4547) conflicts with the $27M release and is unexplained; unsold remainder of the offering ($76.6M). No valuation confirmed: a Forge Global $800.9M figure is a secondary-market estimate I did not open.","latest_funding_date":"2026-09-14","valuation_usd":null,"latest_model":"Gen1","latest_model_year":"2025","latest_model_source":"https://dev.to/dan_ledger_ce2886f0037972/2026-01-02-daily-robotics-news-4547","units_shipped":null,"units_shipped_source":null,"units_shipped_note":"No published count of delivered humanoids found; company targets pre-production deliveries by end of 2026.","as_of":"2026-11-03"}],"sources":["https://persona.ai/why-persona/","https://finance.yahoo.com/news/persona-ai-raises-27m-oversubscribed-131500748.html","https://runtimewire.com/article/persona-ai-sells-65m-planned-142m-humanoid-robot-offering","https://dev.to/dan_ledger_ce2886f0037972/2026-01-02-daily-robotics-news-4547"]}