Neura Robotics, a German humanoid robot company, has attracted large-scale investment from big American tech companies such as NVIDIA and Amazon.
According to U.S. economic broadcaster CNBC on the 10th (local time), Noira Robotics announced that it had raised up to $1.4 billion (approximately 2.13 trillion won) through a Series C investment round.
Tether, Qualcomm, Amazon, and NVIDIA, along with European manufacturers Bosch, Schaeffler, and the European Investment Bank (EIB) participated in this round.
One source said that Noira's corporate value was estimated at about $7 billion (about 1.064 trillion won). According to the source, full investment is conditional on Noira achieving certain performance targets.
“The future of AI will not be confined to screens,” said David Leger, founder and CEO of Noira. “It will move, interact, learn and work with us in the real world.”
This is interpreted to mean that the goal is to create an AI assistant-type humanoid that can collaborate universally in both human daily environments and complex industrial sites.
There is an assessment in the industry that Noira's development direction shows a different approach from Boston Dynamics, a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Group.
While Boston Dynamics has pioneered the market by leveraging robot movement performance and hardware completeness, Noira is taking an 'AI first' strategy by transplanting its self-developed cognitive AI platform into various form factors such as humanoids and industrial robot arms.
The fact that American semiconductor companies such as NVIDIA and Qualcomm and European manufacturers such as Bosch and Schaeffler participated as investors is interpreted as a consortium structure aiming at both 'AI brain' and 'industrial field application'.
NVIDIA, which has a separate robot AI semiconductor partnership with Hyundai Motor Group, participated as a direct investor in Noira, which is analyzed as a ploy to take the lead in AI semiconductor and computing standards.
As interest is focused on applying AI to systems that can interact in real physical environments, investors are flocking to robot startups.
According to market research firm Dealroom, the investment that robot companies have attracted this year is $55.8 billion (approximately 84.8 trillion won), which is almost double the all-time high recorded last year.
To date, most of the investments have come from American and Chinese companies, but new robotics companies are growing in Europe as well. Representative examples include Germany's Ergil Robotics and Britain's Humanoid, which Softbank invested in.
CEO Leger said, "The next-generation AI leader can emerge anywhere in the world if there is sufficient vision, engineering talent, and execution speed. With this investment, Noira has established itself as a leader in the global robotics industry, standing shoulder to shoulder with top companies in the U.S. and China."
