EP25: The Factory Bottleneck — Why Demonstration-Trained Robots Are Getting Funded Now

Drew and Reese unpack Standard Bots' $200M Series C at a $1B valuation, lead investor RoboStrategy/BOT, and why demonstration-trained robotic arms are pricing differently from teleop-trained units in the same form factor. Four-step operator playbook for reading robotics term sheets: identify the training paradigm (demo vs teleop), back out the per-unit deployment economics, audit the supply-chain reliance, anchor the valuation against the comparable Series B and the public industrial automation comps. Historical parallel: the late-1990s industrial automation buildout that funded the modern factory floor. Educational content only.