IT Home reported on February 15 that on the 14th local time, according to Reuters, citing sources familiar with the matter, the robot startup Figure AI is negotiating with investors and plans to raise $1.5 billion (IT Home note: currently about 10.898 billion yuan) of funds, and the company's valuation will reach $39.5 billion (currently about 286.983 billion yuan) after financing.
With the rapid development of AI technology, tech giants such as NVIDIA, meta, and Tesla, as well as several startups, are stepping up their research and development of humanoid robots, aiming to use advanced AI models to drive innovation in robotics and automation technology.
Companies expect humanoid robots to cope with possible future labor shortages and take on some of the dangerous and monotonous repetitive tasks of logistics, warehousing, and manufacturing. Figure AI's customers reportedly include Germany's BMW.
Last year, the startup announced that it had raised US$675 million (currently about 4.904 billion yuan), with major investors including OpenAI, Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, reaching a post-funding valuation of US$2.6 billion (currently about 18.89 billion yuan).
Figure AI's founder and CEO, Brett Adcock, said last week that the company decided to end its partnership with OpenAI because of its major breakthrough in AI technology for robots. "Figure's AI models are developed entirely in-house, and external collaboration is cumbersome and meaningless for our success," he said on the X platform. "
Not only Figure AI, but meta has also been revealed to be forming a new team within its Reality Labs division to focus on developing AI-powered humanoid robots that can assist with manual labor.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk also said last year that the company's humanoid robot, Optimus, could be ready by the end of the following year.