Figure, an AI robotics company that develops humanoid robots for general use, has announced this week that it has raised 675 million dollars in a funding round that included investments from companies such as Microsoft, OpenAI (the creators of ChatGPT), NVIDIA, and Bezos Expeditions (owned by Jeff Bezos).
Along with this investment, Figure and OpenAI have signed a collaboration agreement to develop next-generation AI models for humanoid robots, combining OpenAI’s research with Figure’s deep knowledge of robotics hardware and software.
According to the company, the objective of the collaboration is to accelerate Figure’s commercial timeline by improving the capabilities of humanoid robots to process and reason from language. This, combined with the received investment, will accelerate Figure’s commercial deployment of humanoid robots.
“We have always planned to return to robotics and see a path with Figure to explore what humanoid robots can achieve when driven by highly capable multimodal models,” says Peter Welinder, Vice President of Product and Partnerships at OpenAI. “We are impressed by Figure’s progress to date and look forward to working together to open up new possibilities for assisting robots in everyday life.”
