FORT Robotics and Newbury Street II Acquisition Corp. announced that they have entered into a definitive business combination agreement that will result in a combined, publicly traded company.
Upon closing of the business combination, the combined company will be named FORT Robotics Holdings, Inc. and is expected to be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the new ticker symbol “FROB,” subject to regulatory approvals.
The companies said that the transaction values the combined company at a pro-forma enterprise value of $556.6 million (pre-money equity value of $500.0 million).
Building trust in physical AI
Since its founding in 2018, FORT Robotics said that it has since become a leading provider of safety technologies across the robotics industry, trusted by more than 600 customers including:
- Agility Robotics
- Google DeepMind
- Cobot
- Zoox
- RIVR
- Carnegie Robotics
- Textron
- Forterra
- Genie
- Ocado
- Oxa
- DoorDash and others
The company is backed by investors including Tiger Global, Mark Cuban Companies, Prologis Ventures, and Five Eleven Partners and recently announced a strategic collaboration with NVIDIA as part of the Halos for Robotics ecosystem.
The company grew out of founder and CEO Samuel Reeves’s previous company Humanistic Robotics, which built robots to clear landmines.
“Physical AI will change the way we work in every industry, and this will be a game changer for workers, organizations and governments worldwide,” Reeves said. “However, these new machines come with a completely new and different risk profile, and that must be addressed before autonomous systems can scale. FORT’s mission is to ‘ensure robots cause no harm,’ and we are dedicated to pioneering and building a shared framework for trust that robot manufacturers, integrators, end users, regulators, insurers, governments and any other interested party can rely on. How we trust physical AI will be one of the defining questions of our time and answering it will be a key enabler that will move these next-generation machines from isolated pilot programs to real, scalable adoption.”
FORT said that the post-closing board of directors is expected to include:
- Sally Miller, Global CIO, DHL Supply Chain
- Jennifer Vescio, former executive, Uber
- Vijay Kumar, Dean of Engineering, University of Pennsylvania
- Karl Iagnemma, CEO, Vecna Robotics
FORT said that its Trust Layer serves as the foundational safety infrastructure for the next generation of physical AI, enabling autonomous machines from different manufacturers to operate safely alongside humans and within shared environments. The company said that the platform, which is backed by 25 patents and has been certified to meet Safety Integrity Level 3 per IEC 61508, is intentionally machine-and application-agnostic, designed to serve as a universal layer of trust across mixed-machine workspaces.
In May 2026, FORT expanded The Trust Layer through the acquisition of Mapless AI, a full-stack, safety-first teleoperation company, adding remote human-in-the-loop control and onboard active safety to FORT’s existing platform.
“Newbury Street II is proud to partner with FORT, a category-defining platform addressing one of the world’s most complex infrastructure challenges,” said Thomas Bushey, CEO of Newbury Street II. “The robotics revolution is at an inflection point, and we believe FORT’s universal layer of trust can accelerate widespread adoption. We look forward to supporting Samuel and the team as they advance FORT’s horizontal platform for physical AI – as a public company, we believe FORT is well positioned to extend its leadership and create long-term shareholder value.”
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