Agile Robots, the Munich company that makes humanoids, robot arms and the software to run them, has raised $500 million at an $8.5 billion valuation. SoftBank led the Series F round, with Nvidia, Hitachi and the investor T.Capital also taking part. The company said on Thursday that the money takes the total it has raised since 2018 to about $2 billion, and that it will go on a push into the United States and more factory capacity, including in Germany.
It lands on a day when investors were also reading J.P. Morgan’s forecast that US humanoid output could reach 300,000 to 400,000 units a year by 2030. Here is what was announced, what the numbers mean, and what is still unproven.
What was announced
The headline facts are consistent across Reuters, Bloomberg and AFP. The $500 million Series F values Agile Robots at $8.5 billion. SoftBank Group led it. Nvidia and the Japanese industrial group Hitachi, including its venture arm Hitachi Ventures, joined, along with T.Capital. The company says it will use the proceeds to expand in the US, hire engineers, speed up its robot applications and add production capacity.
A company spokesman told AFP that Agile now considers itself Europe’s most valuable “physical AI” robotics firm. That claim is Agile’s own, but the maths supports it among start-ups: The Next Web notes that the valuation tops the roughly $7 billion put on fellow German firm Neura Robotics in June, when Neura raised a record $1.4 billion Series C.
Smaller than the rumour
There is a detail worth noticing. Bloomberg reported in June that SoftBank was in early talks to put in around $800 million. The final round is $500 million, so the headline amount is about a third lower than the figure that was floating around. The valuation is still a big jump on the company’s last big round, a $220 million Series C in 2021, also led by SoftBank, which made Agile Germany’s first robotics unicorn.
What Agile actually sells
Agile was founded in 2018 as a spin-out from the German Aerospace Centre. It is not only a humanoid start-up. Its flagship Diana 7 arm has torque sensors in all seven axes, so it can feel how hard it is gripping and adjust, which matters for delicate assembly work. It also makes mobile robots and dexterous hands, and owns a group of subsidiaries including Franka Robotics, Idealworks, BÄR Automation and Krause Automation. The company says it has deployed around 20,000 industrial robotic solutions for customers in car-making, consumer electronics and logistics.
The humanoid line is newer. Agile One was unveiled in November 2025 as an industrial-first machine, and the range now includes a compact research version, Agile One S, and Agile One SN, which comes set up for Nvidia’s Isaac GR00T robot models. That is the same model family we covered when Nvidia unveiled GR00T 2, so the investor and the software supplier are, in this case, pulling in the same direction.
Production: the number to watch
The factory is the real story behind the valuation. Agile opened a site at Fürstenfeldbruck, near Munich, early in 2026, and says it can build up to 10,000 legged and wheeled humanoid robots a year. The Next Web reports that the company expects to make about 2,000 units in 2026, with output possibly doubling or tripling in 2027, and that its latest systems are being tested with manufacturing customers including Audi. Capacity of 10,000 against an expected 2,000 is a gap, and closing it is what the new money is for.
Chief executive Zhaopeng Chen has called the race to build physical AI capital-intensive, and told the New York Times, as relayed by The Next Web, that the funding puts Agile in a stronger position to consider a future stock-market listing. He said humanoids are “fast-approaching the tipping point” at which they are more efficient, while accepting that battery life, weight distribution and the quality of real-world training data are unsolved. No listing has been announced.
Why SoftBank, and why now
SoftBank has made robotics a pillar of its AI strategy, but not without setbacks. Chinese regulators blocked its planned $5.4 billion purchase of ABB’s robotics business, which we covered when China blocked the SoftBank–ABB deal. Backing a company it already knows, and which makes both arms and humanoids, is a way of staying in the sector without that deal. For Nvidia, the stake fits its habit of investing in firms that build on its robot software and chips.
The timing also fits a pattern in this week’s news. Agility Robotics’ move to a Nasdaq listing and Fractile’s $720 million raise show that large sums are still flowing into AI hardware, even after the sell-off we described in our look at the AI stocks rout.
What it means for UK readers
There is no UK element in the deal itself, but there is a read-across. European robotics now has two companies valued at $7 billion or more, and both are German. British start-ups such as Machenta and chip maker Fractile are raising on a smaller but growing scale. For UK factories, the practical effect will be slower: more European-built robots and arms, and possibly more choice in humanoid pilots from 2027.
What we do not know yet
- How many Agile One humanoids are in paid, repeat use at customers, as opposed to pilots. The company has said it has around 20,000 industrial robotic solutions in total, but that figure covers arms and other products as well as humanoids.
- The price of an Agile One, which has not been published in the coverage we reviewed.
- Whether the 2026 and 2027 production figures reported by The Next Web will be met.
- Whether Agile will follow Agility Robotics to the stock market, as its chief executive has hinted it might.
Valuations in this sector are often set well ahead of sales, so delivery numbers will be a better measure than the headline figure. We will report any new production or customer figures when Agile publishes them.