Today Figure confirmed long-standing rumors that it’s been raising more money than God. The Bay Area-based robotics firm announced a $675 million. The Series B values the startup at $2.6 billion post-money. The lineup of investors is equally impressive. It includes Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia, Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions), Parkway Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures and ARK Invest. It’s a mind-boggling sum of money for what remains a still-young startup, with an 80-person headcount. That last bit will almost certainly change with this round. That’s not to say that Figure didn’t already have a lot to work with. Founder Brett Adcock, a serial entrepreneur, notably bootstrapped the company, putting in an initial $100 million to get it started. Last May, it added $70 million in the form of a Series A. I used to think “Figure” was a reference to the robot’s humanoid design and perhaps an homage to a startup that’s figuring things out. Now it seems it’s might also be a reference to the astronomical funding figure it’s raised thus far. When Figure launched in 2022, it put out an ambitious goal of creating a walking bipedal robot within a year. The company told TechCrunch that it hit that date. We didn’t see walking video at the time, but it has since surfaced. The startup is very much a product of its time: humanoid robots are having a moment. Examples have been showcased by Tesla (though I’d temper your expectations somewhat on that), Apptronik and 1X, among others. Amazon recently began a small pilot with Agility’s Digit robot, which seems to have found its groove supplementing human labor in brownfield warehouses and fulfillment centers. Most of these efforts — including Figure’s — are working toward that same goal of building robots for industry.
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