Figure soars to $39B valuation

PLUS: Robots clean up the oceans

AuthorAuthor

Jennifer Mossalgue & Rowan Cheung
September 18, 2025

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. California startup Figure just rocketed from a $2.6B valuation to $39B in one year, promising general-purpose robots that learn through observation.

With Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and all others chasing the humanoid dream, is this proof we've finally cracked embodied AI — or robotics' biggest bubble yet?

In today’s robotics rundown:

  • Figure reaches $39B valuation

  • Robots tackle underwater trash crisis

  • Dyna Robotics nabs $120M from Nvidia, Amazon

  • Robots detect million-dollar art fakes

  • Quick hits on other robotics news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

FIGURE

Image source: Unsplash / Radoslav Bali

The Rundown: California robotics startup Figure just closed a massive $1B Series C funding round, pushing its valuation to $39B — a staggering 15x jump from its $2.6B valuation just last year.

The details:

  • Backed by Nvidia, the funds are aimed at scaling robot production at the newly launched BotQ facility, which targets 12K robots per year.

  • A core objective is expanding the Helix AI platform, Figure’s bespoke neural network for vision, language, action, and collaborative control.

  • The company is doubling down on advanced data collection, using multimodal human demos to boost real-world robot training.

  • Its flagship, Figure 02, is an electric, 5'6” robot with dexterous hands, 20kg payload support, up to 5 hours runtime, and a max speed of 1.2 m/s.

Why it matters: Figure is betting on a future where humanoids can master unpredictable, unstructured tasks that have stumped automation for decades. With plans to flood the market with 100K adaptable robots over four years, Figure hopes to crack the code on general-purpose robot labor.

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SEACLEAR

Image source: Andreas Schmitz / TUM

The Rundown: In a world drowning in marine trash, a Technical University of Munich team is unleashing a robotic cleanup crew designed to gather trash buried on the ocean floor, far from the reach of human divers and surface skimmers.

The details:

  • Part of the EU-funded SEACLEAR, the project deploys a collaborative fleet: an unmanned surface vessel, two tethered underwater robots, and an aerial drone.

  • The collection robot features a custom gripper with a suction device and a honeycomb structure that traps litter while allowing small marine life to escape.

  • AI algorithms trained on thousands of images distinguish trash from marine life, aiming for 80% detection accuracy and 90% collection success rates.

  • The project is now running through 2026 with demos planned in Venice, Hamburg, and other locations; a demo in Marseille was completed this week.

Why it matters: While 66M tons of trash choke our oceans — with 94% buried on the seafloor beyond human reach — cleanup has relied on dangerous, expensive divers or ignored the problem entirely. SEACLEAR's 24/7 autonomous fleet promises to cut costs by 70%, potentially turning ocean cleanup into a scalable industrial process.

DYNA ROBOTICS

Image source: Dyna Robotics

The Rundown: California-based newcomer Dyna Robotics raised a monster $120M Series A — backed by Nvidia, Amazon, Salesforce, and a who's who of tech giants — to accelerate its AI foundation models for general-purpose commercial robots.

The details:

  • Dyna specializes in general-purpose robots powered by its proprietary embodied AI foundation models optimized for commercial environments.

  • After just six months post-launch, DYNA-1 robots are grinding 16-hour days across diverse settings, including hotels, restaurants, laundromats, and gyms.

  • In a marathon demo, DYNA-1 autonomously folded over 800 napkins 24 hours straight, operating at 60% of human speed with a 99.4% success rate.

  • The Series A values Dyna at over $600M, a massive jump from its seed round just six months ago.

Why it matters: With ex-DeepMind scientist Jason Ma at the helm, Dyna says it has cracked what others haven’t: robots that truly generalize without babysitting. The $120M funds new talent and real-world data collection that could make Dyna the OpenAI of physical intelligence, or at least it hopes.

ACRYLIC ROBOTICS

Image source: Robertson, Carmen, Art Canada Institute, Wikimedia Commons

The Rundown: AI and robots are now fighting back against the tidal wave of artist Norval Morrisseau forgeries — over 6K fakes have flooded the market, costing collectors millions in what authorities call the largest art fraud in Canadian history.

The details:

  • The Morrisseau Estate partnered with Montreal’s Acrylic Robotics to use AI and robotics to not only detect fakes but also produce authorized high-fi replicas. 

  • Acrylic Robotics’ AI and robotic arms capture brushstroke pressure and pigment composition to perfectly recreate the style of Morrisseau’s work.

  • The estate also employs Norval AI, a custom-trained algorithm capable of analyzing art and assigning authenticity probability scores.

  • Acrylic Robotics is producing limited editions of five Morrisseau works, ranging from around $2K to $32K, with special ID markings as authorized replicas.

Why it matters: Morrisseau's million-dollar Indigenous artworks have been buried under a tsunami of fakes, making him one of history's most counterfeited artists. Norval AI is one of just two forensic-grade authentication systems on Earth, potentially ending decades of fraud that have hurt collectors and undermined his artistic legacy.

QUICK HITS

Bot Auto just became the first autonomous trucking company to run a fully humanless hub-to-hub trip in Houston, with no driver or remote operator, just AI steering the rig.

AGIBOT’s Lingxi X2 humanoid became the world’s first robot to nail the Webster flip, a notoriously tough gymnastics move.

An autonomous security robot named Lance now patrols Patmos Tech’s Kansas City data center, acting as a tireless digital "beat cop" to supplement human guards.

ABB Robotics partnered with LandingAI to integrate LandingLens’ no-code vision platform into its global automation suite, cutting robot vision training time by up to 80%.

MicroFactory, a San Francisco-based company, built a compact tabletop robot that can perform precision tasks like electronics assembly, soldering, and cable routing.

French automaker Renault deployed the humanoid Calvin at its Flins factory, where it assists workers by handling some of the most physically demanding tasks.

Oslo-based Sonair developed ADAR, a 3D ultrasonic sensor that gives robots a detailed sonic view of their surroundings for safer human-robot collaboration.

COMMUNITY

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See you soon,

Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team