Bezos, Nvidia Invest in Humanoid Robot Startup

Jeff Bezos’ Explore Investments and Nvidia are joining Microsoft, Amazon and other investors  in backing Figure AI, a startup designing humanoid robots. Figure this week announced it has raised $675 in series B funding at a $2.6 billion investment valuation. 

Other investors include Parkway Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures and Ark Invest. 

Through Explore Investments, Bezos has committed $100 million to the venture, while Microsoft is investing $95 million. Amazon and Nvidia both put in $50 million, while existing investors Intel and OpenAI contributed $25 million and $5 million, respectively.

Figure says it will use the investment to ramp up deployment of its commercial humanoid robot for AI training, manufacturing, deploying more robots, expanding engineering headcount and advancing commercial deployment efforts. 

Figure also announced it signed a collaborative agreement with OpenAI to develop next-generation AI models for humanoid robots to help accelerate its commercial timeline.

Figure emerged from stealth last March with its humanoid Figure 01, which the company says is the “world’s first commercially viable” humanoid robot, designed to meet ongoing global labor shortages and perform heavy-duty tasks around a manufacturing space.

Related:Figure Unveils First Look at Its Humanoid Robot

In October, the company released a video update of its robot design to demonstrate its bipedal walking capabilities.

Earlier in February, it was reported that Microsoft and OpenAI were in talks to invest as much as $500 million in Figure AI, in a funding injection that could make Figure the first humanoid robotics unicorn.

Intel Capital also announced an initial $9 million investment into the startup lastJuly.