Robotics Startup Funding: Skild AI and Figure Lead the Race

The new leaderboard

The question of which robotics startup has raised the most money used to have a fairly boring answer. Surgical robot makers and warehouse automation vendors topped the lists because they had been raising money for ten years or more. By late 2026 that has changed. A small group of companies building robot "brains" and humanoid machines has passed the older names in a few years, sometimes in a few months.

The company that comes out on top most often is Skild AI, the Pittsburgh startup building a general-purpose foundation model for robots. One reconstructed funding history puts its cumulative financing at about $2.2 billion, which would place it first among robotics startups overall. Ahead of that new group, it lists Figure, NEURA Robotics, CMR Surgical, Physical Intelligence and Apptronik as the other companies past the billion-dollar mark.11 Skild's January 2026 Series C, roughly $1.4 billion led by SoftBank, valued the company at more than $14 billion. That was more than three times the price it had set about seven months earlier.37

Figure AI is the best-funded company building humanoid hardware. It has raised about $1.9 billion since 2022. Its September 2025 Series C, at more than $1 billion, set a $39 billion post-money valuation.58 No other humanoid company has a higher primary valuation, and Figure has not raised a new priced round since.1

Behind those two sit NEURA Robotics, the German company that has become Europe's best-funded humanoid developer, and Apptronik, which is close to $1 billion raised after a $520 million extension to its Series A in February 2026.14 Physical Intelligence, a robot-model company that builds no hardware of its own, has also passed $1 billion.11

Where the numbers disagree

Anyone using these rankings should know how much the totals differ from tracker to tracker. The disagreements are big enough to change the order at the top.

Skild AI is the clearest example. Sacra puts its total at about $1.7 billion.31 Tracxn lists $1.81 billion over four rounds.32 CEO Deepak Pathak has said the company has raised more than $2 billion.37 The gap comes from Skild's unannounced 2025 Series B. Bloomberg's reporting adds up to roughly $135 million from named investors, while PitchBook data cited by Reuters puts the round at $500 million. One company-history account notes that only two of Skild's four rounds were officially announced, so part of every total depends on investor reports. Even the date of the big round varies: Sacra describes it as announced in March 2026 at a $15 billion valuation, while TechCrunch and Tracxn date it to January 14 at more than $14 billion.313732

Figure's total varies in the same way. Estimates include more than $1.7 billion, about $1.9 billion according to Sacra, $1.75 billion on Tracxn, and $2.34 billion on PitchBook once estimated secondary sales are counted.154 Another profile puts Figure's lifetime total near $2.3 billion.3

NEURA's numbers vary most of all. One tracker says it closed about $1.2 billion in March 2026 and has $1.48 billion in total.14 Another describes a Series C of up to $1.4 billion announced in June.11 A third puts NEURA's cumulative total at $1.84 billion.13 The likely reason is that "up to" commitments get counted differently by different trackers. Readers should treat NEURA's position as solidly in the top group, but not as a precise figure.

The main point for readers is that "most-funded" depends on what gets counted. Historical datasets show this clearly. One 95-company dataset ranks CMR Surgical first at $1.2 billion, followed by Apptronik, Geek+, Auris Health and Symbotic. It leaves out several physical-AI companies that have since overtaken them.29 On my reading, any ranking older than a few months is already out of date at the top.

The brain versus the body

The biggest change these figures show is in what investors are paying for. The two largest robot-model companies, Skild AI and Physical Intelligence, have raised about $2.9 billion combined in only seven equity rounds.16 Investors are writing billion-dollar checks to companies that do not make robots at all.38

Physical Intelligence's confirmed valuation is $5.6 billion, set by a $600 million Series B in November 2025. Reports in March 2026 said it was negotiating a roughly $1 billion round that would value it above $11 billion.36 Coverage disagrees on whether that round has closed. One analysis says it had not been confirmed as of late August.36 Another account says the company's valuation reached about $11 billion in 2026. Until the company announces it, I treat the higher number as reported, not settled.

The gap between the two model companies seems to reflect different strategies. Physical Intelligence is backed mainly by AI labs and research-focused investors such as OpenAI, NVIDIA and CapitalG, and it publishes open research. Skild's backers lean industrial, including SoftBank, Samsung, LG and Schneider Electric.36 Skild now also has revenue to point to. It reported more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue in September 2026, about ten months after its first commercial deployment.29 Earlier estimates of about $30 million in revenue implied a multiple near 467 times revenue. Later figures bring that down sharply, to roughly 140 times its September run rate by one estimate.33 That is still an expensive price, but it is a different situation from a company with no revenue.

Humanoids: lots of money, little revenue

Figure is the test case for whether humanoid valuations hold up. Estimates put its 2025 shipments at about 150 robots. Even with production rising, its full-year 2026 recurring revenue may reach only the low tens of millions of dollars.4 Secondary-market trading suggests some investors are skeptical. Forge Global quoted Figure shares at $174 in mid-October 2026, which implies about $34.2 billion, roughly 12% below the Series C price.8 Other secondary quotes have ranged from $162 to $194 a share, so the market is noisy rather than clearly marking the company down.1

There are real operating milestones. CEO Brett Adcock says Figure's deployed robots outnumbered its roughly 660 employees as of June 2026.8 Its BMW Spartanburg pilot ran for 11 months and supported production of more than 30,000 vehicles.4 The wider humanoid market looks less settled. Unitree's volatile public debut and reports that 1X Technologies may accept a majority SoftBank investment at about $6 billion, well below the $10 billion it had targeted, suggest prices across the category are being reset.8

The funding race is also global. Chinese companies including UBTECH, Unitree, Galbot and AI2 Robotics each have funding totals close to or above those of Western rivals other than Figure.15

Warehouse robots: older, steadier money

Warehouse automation gets less attention but still has the deepest pool of accumulated capital. One dataset counts about $6.6 billion across 27 warehouse and logistics companies, roughly 31% of all the funding it tracks. That compares with about $1.8 billion for the humanoid companies it includes.29 Exact figures differ here too: one tracker credits Symbotic with $1.2 billion and Geek+ with $823 million, while another lists $730 million and $871 million.2011

New warehouse deals are much smaller and focused on getting robots working in real facilities. Brooklyn-based Ultra has raised $62 million in total, including a $50 million Series A led by Framework Ventures. It leases packing robots under a subscription model, and those robots have packed more than 500,000 orders.24 Ultra uses Physical Intelligence's models as its robots' software. Physical Intelligence has published results showing that training its model on Ultra's warehouse data raised packing throughput.24 Destro AI raised an $8 million seed round for software that coordinates robots from different manufacturers.26 Vecna Robotics raised $31 million in September and said demand for its CaseFlow product had more than doubled.29

The takeaway

The funding rankings now combine two kinds of company. One group is the older surgical and warehouse businesses that built up capital over many years and sell to real customers. The other is a newer set of humanoid and robot-model companies that reached similar totals within a few years of launch. My reading is that the robot-model layer is where investors now see the most value. Skild's move from expectations to revenue of more than $100 million gives it a stronger claim to the top spot than its headline funding total alone.

For perspective, all of these figures are small next to defense robotics, where Anduril has raised about $11.3 billion on its own.18 Even after this round of billion-dollar deals, robotics funding is still relatively small and highly concentrated.