Agile Robots raises $500M at an $8.5B valuation
The Munich company says it has more than 20,000 robotic systems installed, and a plant that can build 10,000 humanoids a year.
Agile Robots SE has raised $500M in a Series F at an $8.5 billion valuation, according to Lukas Ziegler. SoftBank led the round, with NVIDIA, Hitachi Group (Hitachi and Hitachi Ventures), T. Capital and others participating. That takes total funding to $2 billion.
It built an industrial business first, and is now moving into Physical AI.
The capital is flowing, and this time it is landing on a company that already ships.
The number worth holding onto is not the valuation. It is 20,000+ robotic solutions installed worldwide. Ziegler also lists 3,500+ employees from almost 60 nations, 2,000+ R&D experts and 650+ patents.
An industrial business first
Agile Robots was founded in 2018 as a spin-off from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) by Zhaopeng Chen. Ziegler's framing is that it went the opposite way from most humanoid startups, building an industrial business and only then moving into Physical AI.
The portfolio backs that up. It includes Franka Robotics, the research arm platform used by labs worldwide, plus BÄR Automation, idealworks and Krause Automation, which was recently acquired from thyssenkrupp. Across those brands it covers humanoids, mobile robots, arms, hands and the AI models behind them.
Ten thousand humanoids a year, on paper
The company opened a production site in Fürstenfeldbruck near Munich earlier this year. Ziegler says it is able to build up to 10,000 legged and wheeled humanoid robots per year. That is stated capacity, not units shipped. Nothing in the source says how many humanoids have actually come off that line.
The new money goes into expansion in the United States, more production capacity including in Germany, and entry into new markets.
Why the install count is the headline
Most of the big robotics rounds this year have gone to companies selling a roadmap. Tutor Intelligence raised $75M on a target of 1,000 robots under contract, as covered earlier. Agile Robots is being valued on hardware that is already bolted into factories, which is a different kind of bet for an investor like SoftBank to make.
Ziegler calls Munich home to one of the most valuable robotics companies in Europe, and notes that Europe now has several robotics companies valued in the billions. Whether an installed base of industrial arms and mobile robots converts into a humanoid business is the open question, and the funding round does not answer it.
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