Apptronik, a University of Texas spin-out specializing in building humanoid robots, on Thursday, February 13, announced a $350 million Series A round of financing.
The mentioned funding round was co-led by B Capital and Capital Factory. It is worth noting the participation from Google, whose DeepMind unit cooperates with Apptronik to deliver embodied artificial intelligence for bipedal robots.
Apptronik chief executive officer Jeff Cardenas, during a conversation with media representatives, stated that what 2025 is about for this startup and the humanoid industry is really demonstrating useful work in these applications with these initial early adopters and customers. According to him, real commercialization and scaling will take place in 2026 and beyond.
The mentioned startup, based in Austin, raised a total of a relatively modest $28 million before the start of the specified funding round.
It is worth noting that the idea of robotization and the very concept of humanoid robots is not new. At the same time, so far, robotization as a kind of global process has a very, very moderate scale. But the current situation does not mean that such a state of affairs will always exist and will never be able to transform into something more. Many experts, in the context of the prospects for progress in the development of the robot industry, have high hopes for artificial intelligence. Within the framework of the relevant expectations, attention is focused on the expected software powered by AI, which will become a kind of brain of humanoid robots and will allow these machines not only to perform many different tasks but also to think, including in a broad abstract dimension of the corresponding cognitive activity.
The mentioned expectations are one example of the revolutionary importance of artificial intelligence. At the same time, it is worth noting that the issue of cybersecurity has become relevant against the background of the active development of AI. Scammers also use artificial intelligence tools in their activities. To counteract the corresponding threat in the cyber environment, personal awareness of users is important. For example, an Internet search query such as how to know if my camera is hacked will allow anyone to get information about signs of unauthorized access to the device.
