FORT Robotics, a Philadelphia-based startup that builds safety systems for robots and autonomous machines, agreed to go public through a merger with Newbury Street II Acquisition Corp (Nasdaq: NTWO), the companies announced on August 18, 2026. The combined company, FORT Robotics Holdings, will trade under the ticker FROB once the deal closes, which the companies expect in the fourth quarter of 2026.
The transaction values FORT at a pro-forma enterprise value of $556.6 million, with a pre-money equity value of $500 million. It is expected to bring roughly $201 million in gross proceeds, including $31 million in new investment from backers such as Tiger Global, Prologis Ventures, Mark Cuban Companies and Five Eleven Partners, leaving about $182 million in net cash on the balance sheet after costs. FORT’s existing shareholders will retain roughly two-thirds of the combined company.
What FORT Robotics sells
FORT describes itself as the “Trust Layer for Physical AI” — a machine-agnostic safety platform rather than a robot maker itself. Its products include wireless emergency stops and vehicle safety controllers, plus a monitoring platform called FORT Manager, certified to Safety Integrity Level 3 under the industrial standard IEC 61508. According to the companies, more than 600 customers run FORT’s systems across over 19,500 deployed units, including Agility Robotics, Google DeepMind, Zoox, DoorDash and Textron.
FORT reported 62% year-over-year revenue growth and 66% gross margins in 2025. Founder and CEO Samuel Reeves said the company’s mission is to “ensure robots cause no harm” as physical AI spreads into warehouses, delivery fleets and factories.
A safety layer for a fast-growing industry
The listing comes as humanoid and industrial robot makers race to scale deployment, and as regulators and insurers increasingly ask who certifies that an autonomous machine is safe to operate near people. Rather than competing with the robotics companies it serves, FORT is positioning itself as neutral infrastructure for that question — closer to a certification body than a manufacturer.
Going public through a SPAC merger, a reverse-merger route through an already-listed shell company, lets FORT reach Nasdaq faster than a traditional IPO, though the structure has drawn scrutiny in the past for offering fewer investor safeguards than a standard listing.