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Manufacturing tech is having a moment

The week that was

The reading line

Quote of the week

Manufacturing tech investment is surging as AI startups automate production and the industry rebounds.

By the numbers: U.S. venture funding has already hit nearly $35 billion this year, eclipsing the roughly $30 billion deployed in all of 2025, per PitchBook.

Context: Manufacturing activity has expanded for the past five months amid growing demand, per the ISM's Purchasing Managers Index, a leading indicator of the industry's economic health.

What they're saying: "There's no better time than now to build manufacturing data infrastructure," Brown Gibbons Lang & Co. managing director Michael Magruder tells Axios.

Construct Capital co-founder and managing partner Dayna Grayson says "investors are waking up to the opportunity" in physical AI, the VC firm's specialty.

"Companies that have been built on technology first ... in the past five to 10 years have outperformed other public market companies and are quite durable," Grayson says.

"We need to bring back manufacturing in a way that is much more automated and forward-thinking," says Dynamo Ventures managing partner Santosh Sankar.

1 big thing: Manufacturing tech is having a moment

Bain Capital agreed to buy a 51% stake in marine engine maker Everllence from Volkswagen for $8.4 billion. Go deeper

C.H. Robinson's $75 million deal for DeSpir Logistics added health care logistics expertise to the Minnesota-based logistics giant's arsenal. Go deeper

Elroy Air, a defense drone delivery startup, will go public via a SPAC deal with Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. VII. Go deeper

Partly, an Austin, Texas-based AI model for the automotive repair supply chain, raised $50m in Series B funding led by DST Global Partners. Go deeper

Superlight, a developer of medium-duty electric trucks, closed $21 million in Series A funding. Go deeper

2. The week that was

Illustration of a tabletop calendar with a page turned revealing Benjamin Franklin

🚚 FedEx Freight turns focus toward high-margin shipments (Trucking Dive)

⚓ Trade uncertainty leads South Carolina Ports to temporarily shut down container terminal (FreightWaves)

🚂 Rising trucking rates drive U.S. companies back to the railroad (WSJ)

🇮🇷 Iran reasserts its right to control shipping in Strait of Hormuz after ship hit near Oman (Reuters)

🇺🇸 Trumponomics 2.0 throws out old globalization playbook (Axios)

3. The reading line

Illustration of a cursor in place of a press pass on an old-fashioned brown fedora. 

"The nation that reduces its economics to consumption is not truly prosperous."

— U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a speech to the Economic Club of New York

4. Quote of the week

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⛓️ Supply chain weekly

June 27, 2026

1 big thing: Manufacturing tech is having a moment