A new step forward in scaling Physical AI from Europe. We are glad to welcome a new partner to our ecosystem. We're joining forces with SECO, an Italian company with deep expertise in embedded and edge AI computing, to help bring our cognitive robots, including our humanoid 4NE1, into series production. Our robots run on a Brain and Nervous System architecture, because intelligence doesn't just sit in one central brain, it lives directly in the limbs, so arms and legs can sense and react in real time without waiting on a round trip to a central processor. We call this innovative concept Smart Limbs, and they run on Qualcomm Technologies' Dragonwing™ processors, which deliver the on-device AI performance, power efficiency and low latency this decentralized layer needs. SECO engineers the compute modules and manufactures at the volumes our scale-up requires, while also collaborating on real-world industrial data and automation solutions for semiconductor and electronics manufacturing, creating technologies that can ultimately be deployed globally:

Thoughts about $CCXI Agility Robotics: > People see the tech as inferior to competitors because of the appearance of Digit, the company main robot. I think it is a mistake to confuse appearance with the real functionality of the robot. I prefer a robot that looks like an ugly fridge but whose qualities and tech are superior to the competition. > Following the previous point, its limbs are specifically designed for handling plastic containers (totes). > The main beneficiaries of robots are factories, and years later, homes, where the appearance of the robot will be adapted according to the day to day functionalities in the home. > They have RoboFab in Salem, Oregon, the first factory dedicated exclusively to humanoids, designed to scale production up to 10000 units per year. > One KPI I like is accumulated hours in customer facilities. These hours are data, and we already know the role of data in AI. > Customers: $AMZN, $GXO, $MELI, Toyota. > Business model: Robotics as a Service. You pay an hourly fee. I like it quite a lot because as production increases, the €/h will decrease and customers will first reduce personnel expenses and then opex, improving margins. > Investors: $NVDA, which provides AI infrastructure, and Foxconn, which provides scalability in production. Amazon and Schaeffler have also invested to secure supply.

🚀 60 years ago today, Gemini IX-A launched Cernan and Stafford for a three-day mission riddled with mishaps. Cernan performed America’s 2nd EVA which he called “the spacewalk from hell” as he became the first person to orbit Earth entirely outside a spacecraft. From Gemini Remastered: “Before launch, Deke Slayton, who now ran flight crew operations, entered the room where Stafford was suiting up and asked the suit technician to leave and closed the door. He expressed NASA’s concerns about the EVA and added “In case Cernan dies out there, you’ve got to bring him back, because we just can’t afford to have a dead astronaut floating around in space.” Stafford set out his concerns about how difficult that would be and ultimately, he was Commander and he’d make the call. After suiting up, Cernan quizzed Stafford: “Deke was in there talking to you quite a while. What did he say?” Stafford replied: “He just said he hoped we’d have a good flight.” Launch day came May 17, but the rendezvous-target Agena took a nosedive into the ocean for its launch. NASA switched to a backup ATDA target vehicle (which failed to deploy properly in orbit, leaving it useless, looking like an “angry alligator”). The Gemini IX crew faced multiple launch scrubs over 17 days, with six separate entries into the spacecraft for launch. Cernan was to test a new AMU backpack with hydrogen peroxide thrusters. 80 Velcro patches were bonded to the exterior of the spacecraft and his gloves to assist in crawling to the AMU, where he was to do an untethered free-floating spacewalk — a bold mission plan that did not succeed until McCandless did it in 1984. Cernan’s suit was made extra fire retardant to resist burn through by the AMU thrusters. But this made it very rigid and difficult to move in space (like a “rusty suit of armor”). Every movement required immense exertion, which caused him to sweat profusely, overwhelming his suit's environmental control system and causing his helmet faceplate to completely fog up. He had to use his nose to wipe a small visibility window in his faceplate as he fumbled from a lack of handholds. His intense thrashing ripped through seven inner layers of heavy thermal insulation on the back of his suit, leaving a triangle of skin unprotected. When the spacecraft rotated into the daytime side of its orbit, the exterior of the suit was hit by raw, unfiltered sunlight at a blistering 250°F. Without the insulation, the searing solar heat baked right through the remaining pressure bladder layer. Cernan recalled feeling a scalding, fiery sensation on his lower back but had to ignore it because he was already fighting for his life while blind from the fogged visor. His heart rate hit 180bpm and the flight surgeon was concerned he could lose consciousness. He also lost communications fidelity, resorting to a binary code: one squawk for yes, two for no. Cmdr. Stafford decided to cancel the AMU jetpack test. Cernan called out to CAPCOM Neil Armstrong in mission control: “You might tell everyone down there I’m sure sorry about this.” Because the pressurized suit had ballooned in size with outstretched limbs larger than the hatch opening, and with Cernan completely exhausted and blind, getting back inside the spacecraft was a brutal physical struggle for both men. Together, they used the mechanical hatch-cranking mechanism to literally compress Cernan’s stiff suit and force the door closed against his helmet causing him to almost black out from an inability to breathe. Overall, Cernan lost 13 lbs. from extreme dehydration. Despite the setbacks, NASA learned valuable lessons about spacesuit design and the need for visible handholds for EVAs (which was corrected for Apollo). Here are some heroic artifacts from the Future Ventures museum: 1) The newest addition to the collection, Cernan’s Constellation Chart and Greek Alphabet Cue Card, as annotated and flown on Gemini IX-A. On the upper border, Cernan refers to the planned rendezvous with the ATDA. The accompanying Gemini 9 constellation chart showed key navigation stars labeled with their Greek letter designations (like α Lyrae, β Orionis). Since astronauts weren’t trained astronomers, they carried a Greek letter cheat sheet to quickly decode those symbols into star names and locations. They would use the legend to match ‘α’ to the brightest star in a constellation, ‘β’ to the next, and so on, letting them correctly identify stars through the spacecraft’s sextant/telescope for celestial navigation. 2) Original left-handed glove from the Gemini G3C space suit made by the David Clark Company. 3) ITT Interphones used by the frogmen during recovery at sea; it was a pluggable hard line (like in the Matrix) used throughout Gemini after splashdown. The frogmen welcome the astronauts home and let them know when it was safe to open the hatch. For Apollo, NASA switched to Motorola radios. 4) Photo of the frogmen welcoming a weary Cernan and Stafford back to Earth, with orange interphones clearly visible.

We just wrapped Draper Summit 2026 at Half Moon Bay. Every year we host this reunion of people who are changing the world. We heard from some of the top leaders today including: Baiju Bhatt, Founder of Robinhood → Aetherflux (this man does not slow down) Rosie Rios, former Treasurer of the United States. Rob Kaplan, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs. Sal Khan, who is revolutionizing how every human on Earth learns. The conversations were so futuristic, you would have to hear it from our entrepreneurs to believe it. HexemBio is rejuvenating all your blood cells. There were stealth companies regenerating limbs via bioelectricity, replacing brain cells, and rethinking human reproduction entirely via artificial wombs. Muse Bio launched the world's first topical rejuvenative serum made from menstrual blood stem cells - promoting scarless healing and glowing skin. Autolane is building the orchestration layer the autonomous world needs to function. Feltsense is building founder agents that source ideas, build product, and go to market without a human in the loop (they replicated the entire YC batch a few weeks ago). Venus Aerospace is developing the most efficient rocket engine ever built. Gemma Robotics sent a robot to autonomously apply professional make up - airbrushed foundation, contour, etc. The results were fantastic. And we live taped Meet the Drapers Silicon Valley! You'll have to tune in to see the winner… Another summit in the books, for the books. The greatest takeaway about what made Draper summit successful: We all were able to spend time in a beautiful location, learning about frontier tech, getting to know each other deeply, and creating real, meaningful friendships while simply having a lot of fun. At Draper, we know that VC runs on relationships that compound over decades. We are here to build trust with you as you build generational companies. Thank you to all our LPs, founders, ecosystem members, co-investors, and of course the relentless Draper team for coming and making this all possible. Let me know in the comments if you should come next year. Hope to see you there.