Humanoid robot start-up Figure AI has received financial backing from tech giants Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia, among others, to support its introduction of AI-powered humanoid robots to the workforce.
Figure AI said on Thursday it had raised US$675m (£534m) from some of the world’s leading AI companies in a new funding round that valued the company at $2.6bn (£2.06bn). It plans to use the capital to scale up its AI training, robot manufacturing and hire more engineers.
Figure is also seeking to accelerate it its commercial plans with its OpenAI collaboration and enhance the ability of its robots to process language.
Figure AI believes its humanoid robots, which are capable of carrying out tasks such as moving crates on to a conveyor belt, could ease a labour shortage and fill as many as 10m jobs in the U.S. alone. By 2030, the US manufacturing sector will have 2.1m unfilled jobs, a 2021 study by Deloitte found.
The latest funding round includes OpenAI’s start-up fund, Align Ventures and Ark Invest as well as Bezos Expeditions, the family office of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Parkway Venture Capital and Intel Capital, which invested in Figure’s previous $70m (£55m) funding round in May, have also thrown their weight behind the company again.
OpenAI, whose ChatGPT chatbot triggered the AI boom in late 2022, has a complex relationship with Microsoft. Microsoft has made a $13bn (£10bn) investment in OpenAI but owns no conventional equity.
OpenAI was founded as a not-for-profit organisation in 2015, but owns for-profit subsidiaries set up to facilitate Microsoft’s investment.
The start-up also struck a deal in January with BMW, its first commercial agreement, to deploy its robots in the carmaker’s factories in the US, initially in South Carolina. It aims to start this year.
