We might be getting closer to having human coworkers. Figure, an AI company developing humanoid robots that can carry out general work tasks, raised a $675 million Series B funding round Thursday, earning a $2.6 billion valuation. The company counts Microsoft, OpenAI, Nvidia, and Jeff Bezos among its investors.
“Our vision at Figure is to bring humanoid robots into commercial operations as soon as possible,” Brett Adcock, founder and CEO of Figure, said in a statement. “This investment, combined with our partnership with OpenAI and Microsoft, ensures that we are well-prepared to bring embodied AI into the world to make a transformative impact on humanity. AI and robotics are the future, and I am grateful to have the support of investors and partners who believe in being at the forefront.”
The 21-month-old company has a goal to develop humanoids that “can eliminate the need for unsafe and undesirable jobs,” it said, allowing workers to “live happier, more purposeful lives.” Figure said it will use the funding from its latest round to scale up AI training, manufacture more humanoids, grow its workforce, and continue its efforts to commercialize its robots.
Figure, which has experts from Tesla and Google DeepMind on its team, has also entered into an agreement with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to combine its research with Figure’s robotics hardware and software to develop next generation AI models for humanoids. The partnership aims to accelerate Figure’s commercialization process by improving the humanoids’ ability to process and reason with language.
“We’ve always planned to come back to robotics and we see a path with Figure to explore what humanoid robots can achieve when powered by highly capable multimodal models,” Pete Welinder, VP of product and partnerships at OpenAI said in a statement. We’re blown away by Figure’s progress to date and we look forward to working together to open up new possibilities for how robots can help in everyday life.”
Figure will also tap Microsoft’s Azure AI platform for training and storage.