Agile Robots Raises $500 Million at $8.5 Billion Valuation as SoftBank and Nvidia Bet on Physical AI
Photo: Hippopx (public domain). Illustrative image.
What happened. Agile Robots, the Munich company building “Physical AI” — humanoid and mobile robots, robotic arms and hands, plus the software and AI models behind them — has closed a $500 million Series F at an $8.5 billion valuation. The round was announced on 12 November 2026, led by SoftBank Group, with Nvidia, Hitachi Group (Hitachi and Hitachi Ventures) and T.Capital participating. Total invested capital in the company now stands at about $2 billion.
What the money is for. The funding will support expansion in the United States, entry into new markets, faster development of robotics applications and more production capacity, including in Germany. Early in 2026 Agile Robots opened a production site at Fürstenfeldbruck, near Munich, which the company says can produce up to 10,000 legged and wheeled humanoid robots a year. The company serves industrial customers in automotive, consumer electronics, healthcare and services, and says it has more than 20,000 robotic solutions installed worldwide.
Why the investors matter. SoftBank leading and Nvidia joining is the signal: the money behind this round is the same money that has been pouring into AI software, now moving into the machines that do physical work. Agile Robots was founded in 2018 as a spin-off from the German Aerospace Center, employs more than 3,500 people from almost 60 nations, counts over 2,000 R&D experts and holds more than 650 patents. Its subsidiaries include Franka Robotics and Krause Automation. The bet is that the next phase of AI is not another chatbot but robots that can handle the dexterity and judgement jobs factories still give to people — the same direction Nvidia’s Groot N2 robot foundation model and Google’s Gemini Robotics 2.5 are pushing from the software side. At $8.5 billion, Agile Robots is now valued like a software company — and the test is whether its robots can ship at the volume its new factory promises.
Sources
- Agile Robots / Association for Advancing Automation — “Physical AI Leader Agile Robots Raises $500 Million Series F at $8.5 Billion Valuation to Accelerate Global Growth” (12 November 2026): https://www.automate.org/robotics/news/physical-ai-leader-agile-robots-raises-500-million-series-f-at-8-5-billion-valuation-to-accelerate-global-growth
- FreshSynapse — “Nvidia’s Groot N2 Is a Robot Foundation Model”: https://freshsynapse.com/articles/nvidia-groot-2-robot-foundation-model-2026-11-10/
- FreshSynapse — “Google’s Gemini Robotics 2.5”: https://freshsynapse.com/articles/google-gemini-robotics-2-5-2026-11-11/
- FreshSynapse — “Runway’s Praxis-1 Is an Open-Weights Robot Model”: https://freshsynapse.com/articles/runway-praxis-1-open-weights-robot-model-2026-11-12/
