'Tesla Robot Rival' Apptronic Attracts 500 Billion Won Investment from Google

Apptronic, an American artificial intelligence (AI) humanoid robot startup, announced on the 13th (local time) that it had attracted $350 million (about 505.7 billion won) in investment from Google. Apptronic announced



on its official homepage that day, "We have successfully closed the $350 million Series A funding round with Google."



Apptronic's humanoid robot 'Apollo' [Photo = Apptronic]



Apptronic is a startup founded in 2016 at the Human Centered Robotics Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. It



is considered to be leading humanoid technology along with Tesla's 'Optimus' and Figure AI's 'Figure 1 and 2'. Prior to Google's investment, it had secured $28 million in investment by the end of last year.



Apptronic plans to use the investment to accelerate the development of next-generation humanoid robots and expand the manufacturing facilities for its flagship model 'Apollo'.



In particular, it is developing Apollo's functions to handle a wide range of applications in logistics and manufacturing industries. Apptronic explained, "In the future, Apollo can be deployed in healthcare settings as well as elderly care."



Jeff Cardenas, CEO and co-founder of Apptronic, said, "We are building the world's most advanced and capable humanoid robots designed to work alongside humans in meaningful and innovative ways. We are excited to meet investors who believe in this vision."



Apptronic collaborated with NASA in 2022 to improve the locomotion of humanoid robots, and has since continued AI-related collaborations with NVIDIA and Google's DeepMind robotics team. It has signed commercialization contracts with Mercedes-Benz and GXO Logistics for humanoid robots.





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