Apptronik Raises $350 Million for ‘Meaningful’ Robot-Human Work Interactions

Apptronik raised $350 million to help deploy its Apollo humanoid robot.

The company’s Series A round will also allow it to scale operations and expand its staff to meet what it said is a surge in demand for artificial intelligence-powered humanoid robots, according to a Thursday (Feb. 13) press release.

“We’re creating the world’s most advanced and capable humanoid robots, designed to work alongside humans in meaningful and transformative ways,” Apptronik CEO and co-founder Jeff Cardenas said in the release. “By uniting cutting-edge AI with hardware engineered for meaningful interaction, we’re shaping a future where robots become true partners in driving progress. It’s inspiring to have investors who believe in this vision and are committed to helping us bring it to life.”

The funding will allow Apptronik to scale manufacturing of Apollo units to fulfill growing orders from a range of industries, including automotive, electronics, third-party logistics, beverage bottling and fulfillment, and consumer packaged goods, per the release.

In the last three years, the company has formed tech partnerships with NASA, Nvidia and the robotics team at Google’s AI arm, DeepMind, the release said. Google participated in the funding round, which was led by B Capital and Capital Factory.

Researchers from MIT, Yale and Harvard uncovered a paradox in AI training, which could be a breakthrough in accelerating intelligence in robots. They found that AI systems that learn in quiet environments can perform better than those trained in noisy, unpredictable conditions when deployed in the real world.

“Surprisingly, we found that under certain conditions, training in a noise-free environment can lead to better performance when tested in a noisy environment,” the research team wrote, with noise referring to uncertain factors encountered when interacting with the real world.

Meanwhile, Serve Robotics CEO Ali Kashani told PYMMTS this month that he envisions a future where delivery robots can perform “reverse logistics” services, returning products for customers or bringing them clothes or shoes to try on.

“There’s a lot of other things we can do with these robots once they’re out there,” Kashani said. “They’re making the cost of last mile substantially lowered.”