Due to the efforts of tech companies, technology is getting more advanced with each passing time. Many tech titans are supporting and funding new startups that are focusing on advancing the technologies with their products. Seems like soon we will share working space with humanoid robots. One such startup has raised millions of dollars from tech giants including Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia. This news has been officially shared by a robotics startup named “Figure”. The AI company is currently working on creating humanoid robots that can carry out general work tasks. However, the company was looking for investment and now many tech giants have made investments in millions.
Robotics Startup Figure Raised $675 Million From Tech Giants including Microsoft
On Thursday, 29 Feb 2024, an AI humanoid robot startup said that it generated approximately $675 million in a series B funding round and earned a $2.6 billion valuation. The tech giants who invested their capital in robotic startups are Nvidia, Microsoft, Jeff Bezos and Microsoft. While sharing the news with media outlets, Founder and CEO of Figure, Brett Adcock said “Our vision at Figure is to bring humanoid robots into commercial operations as soon as possible.”
He further added “This investment, combined with our partnership with Microsoft and OpenAI, 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 partners and investors who showcase their trust and believe in being at the forefront.”
What Are The Vision Of Figure- An AI Company
Figure AI laid down its foundation in 2022 in Sunnyvale California and since then the company has been working on developing humanoids to advance the technology. While sharing the news of getting investment, the founder said that the vision of the company is to create humanoids that “can replace the need for undesirable and unsafe jobs.”
The company drew the world’s attention after introducing its general-purpose robot named Figure 01. The company claimed to create a robot that has movements similar to humans. Speaking about the vision of the company, it said that their new product or we can say humanoid will allow the workers or laborers to “live happier, safe and more purposeful lives.”
The founder of the company further added that the startup will use the funding from its latest round to boost Artificial Intelligence training, manufacture more humanoid robots, increase the workforce of the startup and continue its efforts to commercialize its automatons. In addition to this, the robotic startup that has a great team including experts from Google DeepMind and Tesla has joined hands with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to merge its research with the robotics software and hardware of Figure to create next-generation AI models for automatons. The alliance of Figure with OpenAI focuses on accelerating the commercialization process of Figure by improving the ability process of humanoids and reason with language.
Pete Welinder, Vice President of product and partnerships at ChatGPT maker said in a released statement, “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.” We are highly impressed by the progress of Figure to date and we are quite excited and looking forward to working with Figure to create new possibilities for how robots can help to make our everyday life easy.”
Besides it, Robotic startup will also tap Microsoft’s Azure AI platform for storage and training.