Humanoid Robotics Firm ‘Figure’ Attracts $39 Billion Valuation—and Questions
**Humanoid Robotics Firm 'Figure' Attracts $39 Billion Valuation—and Questions**
By Rocket Drew
Mar 4, 2025, 7:00am PST
Figure AI is the talk of the robotics town these days. The three-year-old startup, which designs humanoid robots for work in factories and homes, is planning to raise $1 billion to $2 billion in equity financing at a $38.5 billion pre-money valuation. That's a staggering 15 times its valuation from a year ago.
However, the venture funds which are putting money into the round—Align Ventures, Parkway Venture Capital, and Future Now Ventures, according to FutureNow general partner Rodney Thompson—previously invested in Figure. That makes their bidding up the value of their existing stakes less meaningful.
FutureNow, a one-year-old firm, is using a special purpose vehicle to pool money from multiple investors, Thompson said. Align Ventures has also discussed raising an SPV to invest in the round, my colleague Natasha reported. SPVs have become more prevalent in big-ticket AI rounds.
Figure has good reason to drum up attention. OpenAI, which previously invested in and provided Figure with key software, has embarked on its own exploration of designing humanoid robots. As has Apple, apparently, and it's probably a matter of time before other major firms jump into the fray. (To understand how AI advancements have energized the field, read about the nine robotics startups we had our eye on in December, including Figure.)
The VC firms planning to fund Figure aren't well-known. Aside from an earlier investment in Figure, FutureNow's website says its portfolio includes SandboxAQ, a quantum computing startup my colleagues recently profiled. Align Ventures is focused on consumer investments, such as pet food delivery service The Farmer's Dog. Parkway was co-founded by a former Autodesk engineer and focuses on AI and hardware-focused businesses, including SandboxAQ.
Part of what some investors say is fueling their interest in Figure is its new robotics AI model, Helix AI, which it showed off in a video demonstration last month. In the demo, two robots collaborate to put away groceries in an office kitchen. It's a mesmerizing watch, but the job is fairly simple: countless robotic arms pick up items and set them down in factories every day. This kind of task doesn't require much planning or dexterity—challenges that often trip up robots. We also don't know how many times Figure trained its robots to put away groceries in that kitchen before the cameras started rolling. Like other kinds of AI, robots can succeed after training in a specific environment but malfunction in new settings.
The challenge of adapting a robot to a new environment could help explain why Figure's most-touted partnership with BMW is in its early stages. Figure's robots have not yet moved into the production line at BMW, said a spokesperson for the carmaker. Figure replicated BMW's body shop in its office and spent last year training its robots to help assemble cars, the spokesperson said.
In January, Figure shipped two robots to BMW's factory in South Carolina, where they take turns practicing on weekends while the plant is dormant, the spokesperson said. Eventually, the robots will help with production, starting off with short shifts. That's a more sobering outlook than the impression you might have gotten from watching this video from last summer of Figure's robot in action at BMW—shot during a week when the plant was shut down, according to the spokesperson.
Figure CEO Brett Adcock has hinted at a second partnership Figure has struck with a large company that moves packages. If the BMW pilot is any indication, though, it may be a long while before Figure's robots are sorting your packages (or putting your ketchup away).
A previous version of this newsletter incorrectly referred to Future Now Ventures as FutureNow Technologies.