Dulo, a start-up founded by Google X co-founder Sebastian Thrun and Adrian Aoun, has raised $130 million, SiliconANGLE reports, citing The Information. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Ram Shriram, Marc Benioff, John Doerr and several venture funds took part, with no valuation disclosed. The company is building foundation models for hardware design tasks, aiming to speed up manufacturing. Thrun has named robotics as one of its focus areas.

What it means: After models for text, images and code, the next big bet is AI that designs physical things: parts, machines and robots. Hardware design is slow and costly, requiring simulations, prototypes and iterations, and every gain in that cycle becomes a competitive advantage. Dulo is entering a field where much better-funded companies are already active, such as Prometheus, backed by Jeff Bezos, but the names of its founders and backers show the market sees real promise in the area. In Greece, the most direct link is with mechanical design firms, manufacturers making parts for export and university robotics labs. Tools that shorten the design cycle could help smaller units compete with larger ones, provided they have clean data from past projects and people able to check the results. Expectations should stay measured, though, since the company has not yet shown a product and the move from lab to production line is usually long.

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