Saturday, February 22, 2025

AI humanoid robots step closer - thanks to new $350 million investment - Sabrina Ortiz, ZDnet

AI-powered humanoid robots that co-exist with humans to help our workloads may seem like the plot of a sci-fi movie, but companies have been working on them for years. Case in point: Apptronik, a robotics lab founded in early 2016, has been working on a 5-foot 8-inch, 160-pound, general-purpose humanoid robot named Apollo. The company's latest funding will accelerate the robot's deployment. On Wednesday, Austin-based Apptronik announced the closing of a $350 million Series A funding round that will be used to fuel Apollo's deployment, scale company operations, grow its team, and accelerate innovation, according to a company press release. The investment was co-led by B Capital and Capital Factory with participation from DeepMind, Google's AI lab.