Lyte Raises $165M Series C at $1.6B Valuation as Physical AI Funding Accelerates

Lyte raised $165 million in Series C funding at a $1.6 billion post-money valuation. The round was led by Maverick Silicon and brings the Sunnyvale, California-based company’s total funding to $272 million.

Fidelity Management And Research Co., which led Lyte’s Series B, also participated alongside Atreides Management, Key1 Capital, Ora Global and other existing and new investors. Andrew Homan, managing partner at Maverick Silicon, joined Lyte’s board as part of the financing.

Lyte is developing sensing and perception technology designed to help robots understand where they are and what is moving around them. Its stack includes custom silicon, 4D sensing, RGB, motion awareness and AI software.

The company’s initial customers are primarily in warehousing and manufacturing, two sectors where real-time perception can be central to safer and more capable automation. Lyte emerged from stealth earlier in 2026 after announcing $107 million in Series A and B funding.

Lyte was founded in 2021 by Alexander Shpunt, Arman Hajati and Yuval Gerson, a trio of former Apple engineers who worked on advanced sensing and perception technologies. Shpunt also previously co-founded PrimeSense, whose 3D-sensing technology powered Microsoft Kinect before Apple acquired the company in 2013.

The founders’ past work helped bring 3D perception into mainstream products and later became a foundation for Apple’s Face ID technology. That background is central to Lyte’s positioning as a robotics perception company.

Crunchbase News reports that funding in physical AI has accelerated sharply. Global venture funding in the space totaled $47.4 billion across 521 deals in the first half of 2026, compared with $12 billion across 470 deals in the second half of 2025 and $26.4 billion across 436 deals in the first half of 2025.

Lyte’s CEO Alexander Shpunt told Crunchbase News that robots will need “precise, real-time understanding of geometry and motion” to act on the world around them. The key takeaway for readers: Lyte’s round reflects investor demand for core robotics infrastructure, not just robot applications.