Figure AI, the humanoid robotics company that deployed its Figure 01 robot in BMW's Spartanburg manufacturing facility earlier this year, has closed a $675 million Series C round, bringing the company's valuation to $3.9 billion in what represents one of the largest single fundraises in the robotics sector to date.
The round was led by a consortium of strategic investors including BMW Manufacturing, Microsoft, and the OpenAI Startup Fund, alongside financial investors including B Capital and Parkway Venture Capital. The strategic composition of the investor base is deliberate: BMW provides manufacturing deployment context, Microsoft contributes Azure AI infrastructure and Azure Cognitive Services integrations, and OpenAI provides access to frontier language model capabilities for the robot's reasoning layer.
Figure 01 uses a bimanual dexterous manipulation system controlled by a vision-language-action model — a type of neural network that takes visual input from onboard cameras and language instructions, and outputs motor commands directly. The approach, also used by competitors including Physical Intelligence and 1X Technologies, differs from traditional industrial robotics which relies on explicit programming of motion sequences. The neural-network approach allows the robot to handle tasks with natural variation — slightly different part orientations, packaging variations, lighting changes — that would cause programmed robots to fail.
In the BMW deployment, Figure 01 has performed sheet metal body panel transfer tasks with a task completion rate that has improved from 64% in February to 89% in July as the deployed models have been fine-tuned on facility-specific data. BMW's manufacturing team notes that the improvement curve is unlike conventional robotics adoption — traditional industrial robots are programmed once and maintain performance; Figure 01 gets measurably better with operational time.
The $675 million will fund expansion of Figure's manufacturing capacity for robot hardware, acceleration of its AI model training infrastructure, and deployment of a second-generation Figure 02 robot that the company says features improved hand dexterity, extended battery life, and a modular end-effector system compatible with existing industrial tooling.
The competitive landscape is intensifying. Tesla's Optimus programme has reported reaching 1,000 robot production rate per week at its Fremont facility, and Boston Dynamics' Atlas electric platform has secured contracts with automotive manufacturers including Hyundai.