The Year Of Humanoid Robots

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This past year wasn’t the highest-grossing period for robotics startup investment. However, it was one of the flashiest.

In areas from humanoid coworker bots to AI robot brains, startups developing some of the most scifi-esque applications of the technology scored the year’s largest rounds. Big deals skewed early stage as well, indicating the cycle is likely just getting started.

Illustrative of the trend is Figure, a 2-year-old startup dedicated to “bringing a general purpose humanoid to life.” Founded in 2022, the Silicon Valley startup pulled in $675 million in Series B funding in February to further its vision of building robots to perform unsafe and undesirable jobs.

Another example is the year’s second-biggest round, which went to robot brain developer Physical Intelligence. The San Francisco startup, founded just this year, pulled in $400 million at a $2 billion valuation last month.

Altogether, robotics-related startups secured around $7.2 billion in seed- through growth-stage investments in 2024, per Crunchbase data. That’s slightly above year-ago levels, but still well below the 2021 market peak, as charted below.

Versatile robots

One trend we’re seeing in the funding tallies is that investors are interested in startups developing versatile robots capable of doing more than just a simple task or two.

Besides Figure and Physical Intelligence, another exemplar of this concept is Pittsburgh-based Skild AI, which is also developing brain models that can be used in a variety of robots and for different tasks. It raised a $300 million Series A in July at $1.5 billion valuation.

A few months earlier, Silicon Valley-based Collaborative Robotics landed a $100 million Series B to create what it calls “practical collaborative robots” — or “cobots” — to work alongside humans in areas such as manufacturing, healthcare and retail. And San Francisco’s Bright Machines, which focuses on flexible factory robots, wrapped up a $106 million equity financing in June.

On the home front, meanwhile, Cruise founder Kyle Vogt launched The Bot Company this year with a focus on household robotics. The San Francisco startup closed on $150 million in initial funding to build a robot that will help with a variety of household chores.

Help wanted

Robotics startups commonly point to current and projected labor shortages as a motivating factor. Figure founder Brett Adcock’s master plan for the company, for instance, is built on the premise that “there are over 10 million unsafe or undesirable jobs in the U.S. alone,” and that an aging population will only make positions harder to fill.

Using Crunchbase data, we put together a list of 14 companies that raised large rounds this year with a focus on developing robots to do work currently performed by humans.

One robotics power investor and major employer who appears to share this vision is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fund, Bezos Expeditions. Bezos, whose company is known for its embrace of warehouse automation technologies, has backed at least four major rounds for robotics companies this year through his investment vehicles: Figure, Physical Intelligence, Skild AI and Swiss-Mile, which is developing a wheel-legged robot.

Surgical robotics, drones and more

Beyond workplace bots and AI robot brains, we also saw continued investment in areas that have long been major robotics startup sectors.

Surgical robotics is one. This year, two of the biggest investments went to MMI, a developer of technology for robotic-assisted microsurgical procedures, and Capstan Medical, which is working on robotics-enabled technology offering a less invasive alternative to traditional open heart surgery. Both raised $110 million Series C rounds.

Drones and robot delivery vehicles scooped up considerable funding over the years, and continued to do so in 2024. Skydio, which sells drones for enterprise and military use cases, landed a $170 million extension round last month. In the delivery space, another startup with the military as a primary customer, autonomous ground transportation provider Forterra, locked up a $75 million Series B.

Not about exits (yet)

Broadly, the pipeline of funded robotics startups this year fits mostly in what I’d call the “fun to watch” stage. That is, the most heavily funded names are largely early stage, with huge ambitions, fascinating business plans and modest pressure at this point to produce consistent earnings or a clear path to profitability.

Investors, too, seem willing to play wait-and-see if their portfolio companies can deliver on early promises.

It looks like an exceedingly risky proposition, albeit one with potential for enormous returns. That, at least, is what Figure expects in its master plan which admits that: “We face high risk and extremely low chances of success.”

“However, if we are successful,” Figure maintains, “we have the potential to positively impact humanity and to build the largest company on the planet.”

Related Crunchbase Pro list:

2024 Rounds For Startups Developing Robots To Do Human Work