Humanoid robot startup Apptronik has now raised $935M at a $5B+ valuation

Apptronik, the University of Texas spinout focused on building humanoid robots for partners including Google DeepMind, announced Wednesday that it has reopened its Series A round, bringing the total raised to $935 million. Although the company did not publicly share its valuation, it was separately learned that its post-money valuation now stands at approximately $5.3 billion.

A year ago, Apptronik disclosed a $350 million Series A raise. Strong investor interest prompted the company to increase the round to $415 million. It has now raised an additional $520 million from existing backers, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, and B Capital, as well as several new investors.

At first glance, it may appear that the startup is simply selling larger equity stakes at the same Series A valuation. However, that is not the case. According to the company, investors paid progressively higher prices for shares in each subsequent extension of the round. Data from PitchBook suggest the company’s valuation has climbed to roughly three times its initial Series A valuation of about $1.75 billion.

That raises the question of why the company has not labelled this new capital as a Series B. Apptronik maintains that it remains in the early stages of development and was not actively fundraising at the time. Instead, it was responding to significant inbound investor interest, according to a source close to the company.

The influx of an additional $520 million in a year — particularly at a higher valuation — represents a substantial vote of confidence, especially in a capital-intensive sector like humanoid robotics. Developing bipedal robots requires significant investment in research, engineering, and manufacturing. For comparison, closely watched rival Figure AI has raised nearly $2 billion since its founding in 2022 and announced an additional $1 billion round last fall.

Part of the enthusiasm surrounding Apptronik stems from its partnerships. The company has collaborated with Google DeepMind, GXO, and Mercedes-Benz to advance what the industry describes as embodied AI—robotic systems that perceive their surroundings and take physical actions based on reasoning, rather than simply executing pre-programmed instructions. Apptronik says its humanoid robot is designed for tasks such as unloading trailers, selecting inventory in warehouses, and operating or maintaining industrial machinery.

Despite retaining the early-stage designation for its funding round, Apptronik is not new to humanoid robotics. Its work in the space traces back to 2013, three years before the company was officially founded. That year, members of the Human Centred Robotics Lab at the University of Texas at Austin participated in the NASA-DARPA Robotics Challenge, contributing to the development of a humanoid robot known as Valkyrie. Since then, the space agency has continued collaborating with Apptronik as the company developed its own commercial humanoid platform, called Apollo. With nearly $1 billion now secured in its Series A financing and a valuation exceeding $5 billion, Apptronik is positioning itself as one of the most heavily capitalised players in the fast-evolving humanoid robotics market.