IT之家 News on 10/5: FieldAI is building a universal brain for all kinds of robots, including humanoid robots and drones. Investors are pouring huge sums into heavily betting on this development vision.
According to Business Insider, a person familiar with the deal revealed that the robotics company is raising $700 million (IT之家 note: approximately RMB 4.697 billion at current exchange rates), with a post-money valuation of $10 billion (approximately RMB 67.104 billion at current exchange rates); in just over a year, its valuation has grown to five times its previous level.
The company's previous round valued it at $2 billion (approximately RMB 13.421 billion at current exchange rates), and last year it completed a funding round of over $400 million (approximately RMB 2.684 billion at current exchange rates), with investors including Jeff Bezos's family office, Laurene Powell Jobs's Emerson Collective, and Khosla Ventures.
It is currently unclear which venture capital firm is leading FieldAI's new round. The person familiar with the matter said FieldAI has signed a term sheet for this round, meaning the deal may not yet have officially closed.
FieldAI was founded in 2023. The company is developing what it calls a "universal general-purpose brain," a system designed to operate across different robot models, different tasks, and different environments. This software can power a variety of devices, including humanoid robots, robot dogs, drones, and industrial mobile work vehicles, enabling them to operate autonomously in uncertain real-world environments.
Sources said that since 6月, FieldAI has added at least US$3,500万 (approximately RMB 2.35亿 at current exchange rates) in revenue and customer order contracts, bringing total orders and revenue to over US$1.35亿 (approximately RMB 9.06亿 at current exchange rates). Business Insider previously reported that FieldAI had secured revenue and customer contracts totaling over US$1亿 (approximately RMB 6.71亿 at current exchange rates), with more than 30 partner customers.
This funding round is another example of capital continuing to flow into the field of "physical AI" — artificial intelligence systems capable of taking actions in the real world. After this round, FieldAI's valuation is approaching that of its well-funded competitors: Physical Intelligence is valued at about $11 billion (approximately RMB 73.814 billion at current exchange rates), and Skild AI at over $14 billion (approximately RMB 93.945 billion at current exchange rates).
The high valuation is essentially investors betting that FieldAI's robot brain can work reliably in complex and changing real-world scenarios — a challenge that has long troubled robotics companies. Accomplishing this task is far more difficult than training machines to perform a single task in a controlled environment.
Company CEO Ali Agha said in an interview in June (6): "Over the past few months, our business has been growing very fast."
FieldAI is headquartered in both Irvine, California, and the San Francisco Bay Area. The company has recruited talent from Google DeepMind, Tesla, NVIDIA, and Boston Dynamics, and its customer base covers construction companies, data center operators, and defense enterprises.