For the last few years, there have been very few stock IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). Promising companies have been acquired instead, eg: Kiva Systems and Universal Robots. But two robotics-related companies have recently filed: one for the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the other for the New York Stock Exchange.

Key executives leaving (or were requested to leave) Goggle’s drone delivery Project Wing; GoPro recalls all of its newly launched Karma drones and doesn’t offer a replacement; DJI slashes prices. What’s going on?

Farmers, ranchers and growers the world over are transitioning to precision agricultural methods, i.e., subdividing their acreage into many unique sub-plots — in some cases right down to the individual plant, tree, or animal — thereby enabling increased productivity, trace-ability and lower overall costs. Low-cost aerial vehicles, sensors and cameras are integral to the process and are being used to map, observe, sense and spray.

Zoox, the secretive Silicon Valley startup working to build its own self-driving cars, has quietly raised $50 million (in October) in a Series A round led by Composite Capital Management, a Hong Kong-based hedge fund. This brings Zoox’s total equity funding to $290 million.

October fundings for robotics-related startups totaled $291.75 million bringing the year-to-date funding figure very close to $1.5 billion. For acquisitions, three of the six companies acquired reported that $390.5 million traded hands. All in all, another strong month for robotics.

UPDATE #1 11/2/2016: Supporting the “another strong month for robotics” statement is an announcement from the RIA (Robotic Industries Association) that robot orders and shipments in North America set new records in the first nine months of 2016. A total of 23,985 robots valued at $1.3 billion were ordered from North American companies in the first nine months of 2016, an increase of 7% in units and 3% in dollars over the same period in 2015, which held the previous record.

UPDATE #2 11/2/2016: Fortune originally report the funding for Rokid as $65 million. They revised it to “more than $50 million.”

Silicon Valley and other technology centers have their share of brilliant minds. Some of them have similarly outstanding egos. A few of those have very short fuses. Such is the story of George Hotz.

CB Insights Drone Quarterly Financing Trends to VC-Backed Companies shows a downward trend. The Robot Report’s monthly funding reports show something different: a change in the nature of drone applications getting funded.

Each year the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) surveys and tabulates data from its worldwide network of robotics associations. The two 2016 annual World Robotics Industrial Robots and World Robotics Service Robots reports represent the IFR’s analysis of 2015 results.

SoftBank, the Japanese telecom conglomerate, led a group that included Iconiq Capital, Prelude Ventures, Tao Capital Partners, and seven others in a $130 million funding round for Zymergen to help the company grow its workforce and scale its operations in Silicon Valley.

Last week, Samsung announced that it had acquired Viv Labs for an undisclosed amount. As part of the acquisition, the Viv founding team will work closely with Samsung’s Mobile Communications business but continue to operate independently.

September continued the big-money spree for funding robotic startups. 10 good-sized deals and three little ones. Almost $220 million (bringing the year-to-date total well over $1 billion)! Plus, another $2.2 billion paid in September for six acquisitions.

There are many robotics clusters around the world successfully providing for the needs of their respective communities and a few not really achieving their desired goals. Odense and the Danish clusters certainly fall into the former category. They do so because they are organized at every level to be offering and have people that are business smart, humble and cooperative in approach, and public-spirited in nature.

GoPro fans and the financial world have been looking forward to GoPro’s new Karma since GoPro announced last December that it was working on building its first drone. When they delayed the release from early summer until now, it only served to raise expectations.

As autonomous cars begin to hit world markets in pilot tests and other ways, and before the International Federation of Robotics clarifies whether those vehicles are robots or not, two research firms have combined those vehicles with other robots. Their results are below.

InterDrone concluded their 2nd annual trade show and conference in Las Vegas. The differences between the 2015 event and this one reflect the rapid changes in the industry and can be seen as a predictor for the next few years.