RightHand Robotics secured $66 million in a Series C financing led by top growth investors: Safar Partners, a technology venture fund; Thomas H. Lee Partners L.P. ("THL"), a leading investor in automation and supply chain; and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, which is part of the SoftBank Group. Zebra Technologies, Epson and Global Brain also join this round, along with previous investors GV, F-Prime Capital, Menlo Ventures, Matrix Partners and Tony Fadell's Future Shape. Previous rounds were led by Menlo Ventures and Playground Global. RightHand Robotics invented the RightPick Platform, a collaborative robot and unique gripper solution for a wide range of fulfillment center processes. The piece-picking solution combines an intelligent gripper, a vision system, and control software with learning as a form of hand, eye, coordination providing accountability for picking success.

Austin-based Fox Robotics is announcing the close of a $9 million Series A led by Menlo Ventures, one of the most respected venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, and the addition of Mark Siegel, partner at Menlo Ventures, to its board of directors. Additional investors include Eniac Ventures, La Famiglia, SignalFire, Congruent Ventures and AME Cloud Ventures. Fox makes self-driving forklifts that are more flexible, more capable and safer than current AGV's. Fox's forklifts can tackle challenging tasks that no other automation can handle, such as unloading trailers without modifying the warehouse environment. Fox's forklifts can be installed and running in a new warehouse in less than a day, compared to the weeks or months that typical AGV's take for integration.

While social distancing has forced healthcare conferences to go virtual, it hasn't stopped startups from raising money to fund their early development efforts. Here is a list of companies that have raised money this week. A company developing machine learning algorithms in diagnostics, Dascena said Thursday that it raised $50 million in a Series B round led by Frazier Healthcare Partners, with participation from Longitude Capital, existing investor Euclidean Capital and an undisclosed investor. The company plans to use the money to advance its suite of algorithms to inform patient care strategies and improve outcomes. In addition, Dascena announced Thursday the publication of a prospective study to evaluate the effect of its machine learning algorithm in predicting severe sepsis, in the journal BMJ Health & Care Informatics.

In late May, Chinese facial recognition technology developer SenseTime Group announced it had raised $620 million in a second round of funding. The raise valued the company over $4.5 billion, making it the world's most valuable AI unicorn. SenseTime reportedly became profitable last year. Meanwhile, UiPath--an enterprise robotic process automation (RPA) software company--brought in $153 million in a massive Series B round led by previous investor Accel. UiPath said the round pushed it into unicorn status and followed a record year of growth.

Cheaper and older isn't typically associated with riches and success in the Bay Area tech scene. But that's just what San Jose is offering -- cheaper office rent and older tech workers -- to a rapidly expanding cohort of companies focused on artificial intelligence, the explosive new frontier in tech. "San Francisco has the gamers, we have the grownups," said San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo. "We've got a very rich pool of talented, skilled workers." Artificial intelligence -- which can be broadly interpreted to include machine learning and the "deep learning" technology that resembles human thought -- is widely seen to be as revolutionary as the internet and mobile phones.