Financial Association February 24th (Edit Malan) The top US technology companies are betting on a possibility.According to people familiar with the matter, founders Besos, Nvidia, OpenAI and Microsoft all invested in FIGURE AI, a start-up company of a developed robot.
Figure AI reportedly raised about $ 675 million in the new round of financing, and the valuation before financing was about $ 2 billion.The formal investment agreement is expected to be signed next Monday, and the specific details may still change.
Among them, Bessel invested $ 100 million in the investment company Explore Investments LLC through its name.--Academicword#2-> and Amazons subsidiary funds each provide $ 50 million.OpenAI had previously proposed to acquire Figure AI, but did not invest 5 million US dollars in this financing after it did not work.
In addition, Future AI investors also include The venture capital department LG Innotek, Samsungs investment group, Parkway Venture Capital, venture capital company Parkway Venture CapitalAlign Ventures and Mikous ARK Fund and other institutions.
Future AI is committed to developing common humanoid robots so that it can work in different environments and handle various tasks from warehouses to retail.The company made external financing for the first time in 2023, when it raised $ 70 million from investors led by Parkway.
Human robot
According to an investment report, the main goal of Figure AI is to create a humanoid robot called Figure 01, thereby replacing humans to engage in human workDangerous and tired work and solve the problem of labor shortage.
Figure AI competitors include 1X Technologies, Sanctuary AI, Tesla and Agility Robotics.A few days ago, Tesla showed the prototype of the second -generation Optimus Prime two -footed robot, and its CEO Musk also said that it might be delivered next year.Another company Agility claims that its robot has been tested in Amazons warehouse.
Figure AI founder and CEO Brett Adcock once said that Figure the goal is to deploy humanoid robots into the labor market.It is a huge robot application market.
and for companies that urgently need warehouse workers, they want to maintain their competitiveness in an automated environment, but do not want to transform the infrastructure of the warehouse on a large scale.Human robots undoubtedly resolve this contradiction.
Figure 01 is also different from the mainstream robots in the current industry. InsteadWorking space.
Adcock believes that single -purpose robotics technology has been saturated in the past few decades, but the potential of common robotics technology has not yet been fully developed, and this is the opportunity of Figure AI.
