Are we looking at the first mass market ROBOT? Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, Microsoft and others pour $700 million into robotics company whose humanoid machine could ‘alleviate labor shortages’

The biggest names in tech – from Amazon to Microsoft – have poured roughly $675 million into a robotics start-up whose “master plan” is to bring the first commercial “humanoid” powered by AI to market.

The funding round is almost ten times the $70 million that this new robotics company, Figure AI, raised last May.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has committed an optimistic $100 million to the company through his venture firm Explore Investments LLC, while Microsoft invested almost as much: $95 million.

Figure AI hopes its first AI humanoid robot, Figure 01, will prove capable in jobs too dangerous for human workers and could alleviate labor shortages.

For now, the humanoid machine has proven itself adept at making a cup of coffee.

‘“We hope we’ll be one of the first groups to bring a humanoid to market,” Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock told reporters last May, “that can actually be useful and have commercial activities.”

Just over six months after its $70 million funding round last May, Figure AI announced a unique deal to put Figure 01 to work on BMW factory floors.

The German automaker struck a deal to first use Figure 01 humanoids at a BMW plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina – a sprawling, multi-billion dollar facility that includes high-voltage battery assembly and electric vehicle production.

While the announcement provided few details about the precise roles of the bots at BMW, the companies described their intention to “explore cutting-edge technology topics” as part of their “milestone-based approach” to collaboration.

According to the two companies, the agenda for Figure AI and BMW included ‘artificial intelligence, robot control, production virtualization and robot integration’, things that speak for science fiction levels of advanced automation.

Adcock said Axios that, in his opinion, Figure AI’s robots can ‘in principle do everything a human can do’.

Whether or not this boast turns out to be true, Figure has captured the attention of hundreds of millions of venture capital firms promising to produce the ultimate, automated worker.

Graphics chip maker Nvidia has invested $50 million in the business, as has one to Amazon.com Inc. affiliated venture capital fund.

Intel Corp, the manufacturer of high-speed microprocessors, has invested $25 million in Figure AI. Mobile phone giant Samsung has pledged $5 million. And South Korea’s LG Innotek has invested $8.5 million.

But these big tech companies aren’t the only interested parties vying for a piece of the robot worker future that Figure promises: many more millions are also coming directly from the venture capital firms themselves.

Brett Adcock, CEO of Figure AI, said that in his opinion the company’s robots can “basically do anything a human can do.” Whether or not this boast turns out to be true, Figure has captured the attention of hundreds of millions of venture capital firms promising to produce the ultimate, automated worker

Parkway Venture Capital, which conducted Figure AI’s funding round last May, is now investing $100 million in the humanoid robot startup.

Align Ventures – former backers of Airbnb, SpaceX and Epic Games – will provide $90 million.

And according to Bloombergapproximately $67 million more will come from a constellation of other venture capital firms.

Within the financial and technology sectors, sources told the business publication, Figure AI uses a “pre-money valuation” (that is, the inherent value of the startup before this recent $657 million in investments) of roughly $2 billion.

Figure AI’s patented technology and potential are so sought after in Silicon Valley that OpenAI had at one point considered buying the entire startup.

With $5 million invested in Figure, the makers of ChatGPT are just one more tech player betting on the company.

Interest from Microsoft and its peers at OpenAI is believed to have played a role in fueling the frenzy surrounding Figure, which had originally hoped to raise $500 million in this recent funding round: $175 million short of the outpouring of interest from investors it received.

Figure CEO Adcock described the company’s goals as a gap for the industry in terms of perceived workforce shortages with difficult, skilled labor that conventional automation techniques cannot correct.

“We need humanoid (robots) in the real world, doing real work,” Adcock told Axios.

“There’s just a lot of work in these facilities that’s very difficult to automate,” he said, “to be mobile on the floor and be agile. There is a lot of work we can do.”