Massive funding rounds for Gritt and Meshy signal a shift toward AI that interacts with the physical world and generates immersive 3D environments.
The digital frontier is expanding into the physical world as venture capital floods into ‘Physical AI’ and 3D foundation models. On July 21, 2026, Gritt announced its launch with $32.4 million in funding, including a $26 million Series A led by Obvious Ventures and Union Square Ventures. The company specializes in retrofitting existing heavy machinery, such as excavators, with robotic arms and AI to automate high-precision infrastructure tasks like trenching and grading. This move signals a shift from purely digital SaaS models toward software-first autonomy layered onto commodity hardware, targeting the utilities and transportation sectors. The firm is initially focusing on North American civil contractors, positioning its system as an operational platform rather than a pure robotics manufacturer.
Simultaneously, the 3D generation space saw its largest funding event to date. Meshy raised nearly $400 million in a Series B round, bringing its valuation to $1.5 billion. The Silicon Valley-based firm plans to use the capital to develop multimodal 3D foundation models capable of transforming static assets into interactive worlds. This development is particularly relevant for the VR/AR ecosystem, potentially lowering the cost and complexity of asset creation for platforms like Meta’s Oculus. Meshy’s raise follows a $150 million Series A3 by competitor Tripo AI, underscoring a massive capital concentration in 3D world-modeling for game, film, and industrial design customers. The company aims to expand its global go-to-market strategy, moving beyond its initial footprint to provide enterprise-grade tooling for complex digital environments.
In the model landscape, OpenAI has solidified its current dominance with the general availability of the GPT-5.6 family, consisting of the Sol, Terra, and Luna models. Launched on July 9, 2026, these models are now accessible via API and ChatGPT, with pricing structures designed to scale from lightweight tasks to heavy reasoning. Input tokens are priced between $1 and $5 per million, while output tokens range from $6 to $30. This infrastructure provides the backbone for the growing ‘agentic’ AI workflows being adopted by industry giants. The Alliance for OpenUSD recently added ByteDance, Huawei, Physicl, and Unity to its ranks to further advance the interoperability of these 3D and agentic systems, ensuring that AI-generated assets can move seamlessly across different software ecosystems.
Deep-tech research is also receiving a boost through the new Apodex Frontier Program. Launched in Redwood City, the program offers up to $100,000 in monthly AI credits to scientific researchers, academic labs, and deep-tech startups. While no specific funding round for Apodex was confirmed as of July 21, the company is positioning its ‘heavy-duty solver’ model as a subsidized alternative to mainstream providers like Anthropic and OpenAI for high-intensity simulation and optimization workloads. This program acts as a frontier-model subsidy, allowing researchers to bypass the high costs typically associated with high-intensity R&D compute.
Other notable activity in the AI sector includes 8090 Solutions (8090.ai), which secured $135 million in a Series A led by Salesforce to build enterprise AI-agent collaboration platforms. This round also saw participation from Craft Ventures and Launch Fund, highlighting the demand for productivity-focused AI that integrates directly into corporate software stacks. As capital flows into these specialized infrastructure and physical-automation firms, the reliance on cloud giants like AWS and Google Cloud for the underlying compute remains a central pillar of the new data economy. These strategic moves suggest that the next phase of the technological revolution will be defined by AI’s ability to manipulate the physical environment and construct complex, automated digital realities, all while the cost of entry for deep-tech innovation is being reshaped by credit-based access programs.
Lisa Grant serves as a Staff Writer for Just Right News, where she spearheads the publication’s coverage of Technology, Data Capitalism, and Surveillance. With a focus on the encroaching influence of Big Tech on the American way of life, Grant brings a critical, liberty-minded perspective to the most complex digital issues of the modern era. Her reporting is defined by a deep-seated skepticism of centralized power and a commitment to protecting the privacy and autonomy of the individual against the rising tide of what she calls the “Algorithmic State.”
Grant’s unique insight into the tech industry is rooted in her upbringing in Palo Alto, California. Growing up in the epicenter of Silicon Valley, she witnessed firsthand the transformation of the technology sector from a hub of scrappy, freedom-loving innovators into a landscape dominated by monolithic corporations. This proximity to the birth of the digital revolution provided her with an insider’s understanding of the culture and motivations driving the industry. For Grant, the shift toward data capitalism—where personal information is harvested as a primary commodity—is not just a market evolution, but a fundamental challenge to traditional American values of property rights and personal privacy. She saw the “garage startup” ethos replaced by a culture of data-mining and social engineering, a transition that informs her vigilant reporting today.
Now based in Seattle, Washington, Grant operates from another of the nation’s primary technological frontiers. Her location in the Pacific Northwest allows her to observe the real-world consequences of the tech industry’s expansion, from the implementation of invasive surveillance technologies in urban centers to the growing partnership between corporate entities and municipal governance. By reporting from the ground in Seattle, she bridges the gap between the abstract world of coding and the tangible impact it has on citizens’ daily lives, often highlighting how local policies serve as a testing ground for broader national surveillance initiatives.
At the heart of her work for Just Right News is her acclaimed feature series, “The Algorithmic State.” Through this series, Grant explores the ways in which automated systems and artificial intelligence are increasingly used to bypass traditional legislative processes and social norms. She argues that the reliance on opaque algorithms to manage society threatens to erode the transparency and accountability essential to a free republic. Her work meticulously documents how data-driven governance can lead to a “soft” surveillance state that penalizes traditional viewpoints and rewards digital conformity.
Grant’s reporting is a vital resource for readers who are wary of the “nanny state” and the unchecked power of digital gatekeepers. She views the defense of the digital frontier as the next great battle for constitutional conservatives. By exposing the mechanisms of data capitalism and the quiet expansion of surveillance networks, she empowers her audience to reclaim their digital sovereignty. In an era where information is often weaponized by those in power, Lisa Grant remains a steadfast advocate for the truth, ensuring that the principles of liberty and individual agency are not lost in the transition to an increasingly digital world.