SoftBank to invest $500M in robotics startup SkildAI

SoftBank is negotiating a $500 million investment in Skild AI, a software company building a foundational model for robotics at a $4 billion valuation, Bloomberg and Financial Times reported.

The two-year-old company raised its previous funding round of $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation last July from investors including Jeff Bezos, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Coatue Management.

The company’s AI model can be applied to various types of robots, Skild founders Deepak Pathak and Abhinav Gupta told TechCrunch last July. They said the generalized model can be modified for a specific domain and use case.

The intersection of robotics and AI has witnessed substantial investor interest.

Over the recent year, investors, particularly Bezos, have increased their funding to AI-powered robotics companies.

Physical Intelligence, a startup that raised $400 million at a $2 billion pre-money valuation in November, is another startup claiming to be developing “brains” for a broad range of robots. Jeff Bezos, Lux Capital, and Thrive Capital led that round.

Last February, Figure AI, a startup building an AI-powered humanoid robot, raised $675 million at a $2.6 billion valuation from Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia, Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, and Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions).