Aiming at Tesla! Microsoft and OpenAI will jointly lead a $500 million investment in a humanoid robot project

Recently, Microsoft, the new member of the 3 trillion club and the current US technology company with the highest market value, has announced a major investment in the field of robotics . According to people familiar with the matter, Figure AI, a humanoid robot startup, is preparing a new round of financing of up to US$500 million (approximately RMB 3.5 billion), led by Microsoft and OpenAI, an artificial intelligence company it invested in.

It was revealed that Microsoft may invest US$95 million in this round of financing, and OpenAI will invest US$5 million, totaling US$100 million. If this round of financing is completed smoothly, Figure AI's pre-investment valuation may reach an estimated US$1.9 billion, equivalent to RMB 13.3 billion.

Online talent site turns to robots, BMW has booked its humanoid workers

Figure AI’s founder Brett Adcock (BA) was the founder of Vettery, a talent recruitment website platform. In 2013, Brett Adcock and Adam Goldstein founded Vettery to match job seekers with employers who need technical expertise.

In February 2018, Vettery was acquired by Swiss human resources company Adecco Group for $100 million. Two years later, the human resources company acquired Hired, a competitor of Vettery. After the two companies merged, the new company retained the name Hired.

During this process, Figure founder Brett Adcock discovered that there was a serious labor shortage problem in the United States. Some positions could not be replaced by existing robots. Humanoid robots became the best solution in BA's mind to replace human jobs in the physical world.

According to statistics, there are 10 million insecure or unpopular jobs facing vacancies in the United States, of which 7 million vacancies involve important positions in warehouses, transportation and retail. However, there are only 6 million people in the labor market to fill these vacancies, and the turnover rate is very high. Several large warehouse suppliers in the United States predict that they will face serious labor shortages after 2024.

In 2022, BA, seeing the opportunity, founded Figure AI and set a goal to become the world's first commercially viable general-purpose humanoid robot.

Members of the Figure team come from leading American technology companies such as Tesla, Boston Dynamics, Google DeepMind, and Apple. Their goal is to deploy humanoid workers globally. Figure 01 is their first work. According to their claims, the Figure 01 humanoid robot will be ready to provide us with goods and services to a degree never seen before by humans.

In fact, Figure 01 is so intelligent that it is truly astonishing.

At the beginning of 2024, Figure 01 has prepared a surprise for everyone. On January 7, founder Brett Adcock announced on the social platform that Figure 01 will usher in a major breakthrough.

In a subsequent video released by Brett Adcock, after watching 10 hours of videos of how humans make coffee through a coffee machine, Figure 01 was able to complete the above series of actions independently, which means that Figure 01 can achieve end-to-end training.

In response, Brett Adcock said, this is the ChatGPT moment for robots!

Earlier this month, BMW, a giant automaker, signed a cooperation agreement with Figure, planning to introduce the general humanoid robot Figure 01 at BMW's US factory.

BMW's manufacturing plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, is the pilot plant for this humanoid robot and is also its only vehicle production base in the United States. It produces about 1,500 vehicles a day, has 11,000 employees, and exports up to US$9.6 billion.

Robert Engelhorn, president and CEO of BMW AG, said in a statement that vehicle production is evolving rapidly and that robots have the "potential to increase productivity" and "enable our teams to focus on the transformation ahead of us."

Humanoid robots may continue to be a hot investment

This is not the first time OpenAI has invested in humanoid robots. OpenAI's famous work is undoubtedly ChatGPT, a subversive generative artificial intelligence, but its ambition does not stop there.

In May 2023, the humanoid robot company 1X announced the completion of its A2 round of financing, raising a total of US$23.5 million. This round of financing was led by OpenAI Startup Fund.

The subsequent financing of this humanoid robot company from Norway has also been smooth. Half a month ago, they just announced the completion of a new round of financing with a financing amount of up to US$100 million (approximately RMB 700 million), but OpenAI's name was not on the list. Instead, it was replaced by the well-known Swedish venture capital fund EQT Ventures, Samsung and existing investors Skagerak Capital and Nistad group.

OpenAI itself is a super money-making beast. In January 2023, Microsoft invested $10 billion in OpenAI, accounting for 49% of the shares. By mid-2023, OpenAI received financing from Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz in California, Thrive in New York, K2 Global and other institutions, with a total value of more than $10 billion, and a post-investment valuation of $29 billion.

Humanoid robots are not only highly anticipated in overseas capital markets, but also by domestic VCs. Currently, the domestic humanoid robot company with the highest financing is Zhiyuan Robotics. Whether it is the founder Zhihuijun or the desire of humanoid robots to overtake others, they have become the reasons why investors are willing to spend money.

In December 2023, Zhiyuan Robotics once again received 600 million yuan in financing from 11 institutions. In just one year, Zhiyuan Robotics received a total financing amount of approximately 4 billion yuan, with a valuation of 7 billion.

Humanoid robots are substitutes for humans. In work and life, we always hope that someone will do some things we are reluctant to do for us. This job may fall on humanoid robots in the future. Therefore, humans spare no effort and spend money to develop humanoid robots. For this reason, humanoid robots will continue to provide continuous value to humans in the future, and the robot itself and its components will continue to be cutting-edge products that cannot be bypassed in the field of science and technology.