Bay Area-based robotics firm Figure this week announced that its humanoid officially took its first steps — a milestone it hit a few days shy of of the company’s first anniversary. Figure has made a good deal of progress in a short period, due in no small part to founder and CEO Brett Adcock’s initial $100 million bootstrapping. Of course, running any robotics company is a wildly expensive endeavor, let alone one that is building hardware and software for a multipurpose humanoid — a longtime holy grail in this space. Figure has since started looking beyond its walls for funding to help build that dream. In May, it announced a sizable $70 million Series A led by Parkway Venture Capital. At the time, Adcock told me that raising more was on the table for the short term. Today the company tells TechCrunch that it’s adding another $9 million equity investment to its war chest courtesy of Intel Capital, which might soon prove to be a strategic partnership. For some time now, Figure has been showcasing its progress for interested parties, and Intel clearly liked what it saw in the Figure 01 ‘bot. “Intel Capital is constantly searching for companies that push the boundaries of innovation, and we believe that Figure has the potential to shift the way the world thinks about artificial intelligence,” says Intel Capital managing director Mark Lydon.
Full story : Intel Capital backs Figure’s Humanoid robot to the tune of $9 million.
