Are we looking at the first mass market ROBOT? Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, Microsoft and others pour $700million into robotics company whose humanoid machine could 'alleviate worker shortages'
16:45 EST, 23 February 2024
The biggest names in tech — from Amazon to Microsoft — have poured roughly $675 million dollars in a robotics start-up whose 'master plan' is to bring the first commercial 'humanoid' to market, powered by AI.
The funding round is nearly ten times as much as the $70 million that this new robotics firm, Figure AI, managed to raise last May.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, through his venture firm Explore Investments LLC, pledged an optimistic $100 million to the company, with Microsoft investing nearly as much, $95 million.
Figure AI hopes that its first AI humanoid robot, Figure 01, will prove capable at jobs too dangerous for human laborers and might alleviate worker shortages.
For now, the humanoid machine has proven itself adept at making a cup of coffee.
'We hope that we're one of the first groups to bring to market a humanoid,' Figure AI's CEO Brett Adcock told reporters last May, 'that can actually be useful and do commercial activities.'
A little more than six months after that $70 million funding round last May, Figure AI announced a first-of-its-kind deal to put Figure 01 to work on BMW's factory floors.
The German automaker entered an agreement to use Figure 01 humanoids first at a BMW plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina — a sprawling multi-billion dollar facility that includes high-voltage battery assembly and electric vehicle manufacturing.
While the announcement was light on details regarding the bots precise job duties at BMW, the companies described their intention to 'explore advanced technology topics' as part of their 'milestone-based approach' approach to collaborating.
On the agenda for Figure AI and BMW, the two firms said, were 'artificial intelligence, robot control, manufacturing virtualization and robot integration,' business speak for science fiction-levels of advanced automation.
Adcock told Axios that, in his opinion, Figure AI's robots 'can do basically everything a human can.'
Whether these boasts prove true, Figure has caught the attention of hundreds of millions in venture capital promising to produce the ultimate, automated worker.
Graphics chip-maker Nvidia has invested $50 million to the cause, as has an Amazon Inc.-affiliated venture fund.
Intel Corp, the name-brand maker of high-speed microprocessors, has put $25 million into Figure AI. Mobile phone giant Samsung has pledged $5 million. And South Korea's LG Innotek has invested $8.5 million.
But these major tech firms are not the only interested parties vying for a piece of the robot-worker future that Figure is promising: many more millions are also coming direct from the VCs themselves.
Parkway Venture Capital, which ran Figure AI's funding round last May is investing now committed $100 million to the humanoid robot start-up.
Align Ventures — past funders of Airbnb, SpaceX and Epic Games — will provide $90 million.
And according to Bloomberg, about $67 million more will be coming from a constellation of other VC firms.
Within the finance and tech, sources told the business publication, Figure AI carries a 'pre-money valuation' (meaning the start-up's inherent value before these recent $657 million in investments) of roughly $2 billion.
Figure AI's proprietary technology and potential has been such a desired commodity in Silicon Valley that OpenAI had, at one point, considered buying up the whole start-up.
Now, with $5 million invested in Figure, the makers of ChatGPT are simply one more tech player betting on the firm.
Interest from Microsoft and its colleagues at OpenAI are believed to have played a role in inspiring the frenzy around Figure, which had originally hoped to secure $500 million during this recent funding round: $175 million less than the outpouring of investor interest it received.
Figure's CEO, Adcock, framed the company's goals as filling a void for industry in terms of alleged worker shortages involving tricky, skilled labor that conventional automation techniques have proven unable to correct.
'We need humanoid [robots] in the real world, doing real work,' Adcock told Axios.
'There's just a lot of work in these facilities that's really hard to automate,' he said, 'being mobile on the floors, being dexterous. There's a lot of work we can do.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13119023/Are-looking-mass-market-ROBOT-Jeff-Bezos-Nvidia-Microsoft-pour-700million-robotics-company-humanoid-machine-alleviate-worker-shortages.html