FILE PHOTO: A view of Apollo, the humanoid robot built by Apptronik, Inc. at Austin, Texas, U.S., October 25, 2023. REUTERS/Evan Garcia/File photo
(Reuters) - Apptronik said on Thursday it has raised $350 million in a funding round led by B Capital and Capital Factory, with participation from Alphabet's Google, to scale production of AI-powered humanoid robots.
The Austin, Texas-based company is developing Apollo, a human-like or humanoid robots whose tasks will include working in warehouses and manufacturing plants by moving packages and other supply chain-oriented tasks.
Apptronik joins the ranks of rivals like Tesla and Nvidia-backed Figure AI in the race to develop human-like robots as advancements in artificial intelligence lead to significant breakthroughs in robotics and automation.
In October last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that "a lot of progress" has been made with its humanoid robot "Optimus" that could perform many daily tasks.
"This represents an inflection point for the industry. The way I think about robotics and AI is it's very similar to large language models in 2023. So I think 2025 is where you're going to see a lot of activity for robotics," CEO and co-founder of Apptronik, Jeff Cardenas said in an interview with Reuters.
The company, which said it plans "expanded deployment" of Apollo this year, will use the investment to expand the robot's capabilities to other industries including elder care and healthcare.
Apptronik has a partnership with Google DeepMind robotics team and said it has commercial agreements with Mercedes-Benz and GXO Logistics for its humanoid robots.
(Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)
