Figure AI: $39B Humanoid Robot Startup (Founded 2022)

Figure AI is a San Jose humanoid robot startup founded 2022 by Brett Adcock, valued at $39B (Sep 2025) after $1.9B total raised from Microsoft, Nvidia.

Figure AI is a humanoid robotics company founded in 2022 by Brett Adcock, headquartered in San Jose, California. It builds general-purpose robots for industrial labor and home use, powered by its proprietary Helix vision-language-action model. The company has raised $1.9 billion total, reaching a $39 billion valuation in September 2025. Its Figure 03 robot is deployed at BMW's Spartanburg factory and can carry 20-kilogram payloads at 1.2 metres per second.

Figure AI, founded in 2022 by Brett Adcock in San Jose, California, builds general-purpose humanoid robots for industrial and home applications. The company raised over $1.9 billion total, including a $1 billion Series C in September 2025 at a $39 billion valuation. Its Figure 03 robot, powered by the in-house Helix vision-language-action model, is deployed at BMW's Spartanburg plant and can carry 20-kilogram payloads.

Founded: 2022 · HQ: San Jose, CA, USA · Team: 500-750 · CEO: Brett Adcock · Funding: $1.9B total raised: $100M seed (2022), $70M Series A (May 2023), $675M Series B (Feb 2024), $1B+ Series C (Sep 2025, led by Parkway Venture Capital) · Valuation: $39B (Series C, Sep 2025)

About Figure AI

Figure AI was incorporated as a C-Corp in late 2022 by Brett Adcock, who previously co-founded Vettery (sold to Adecco in 2018) and Archer Aviation (SPAC IPO at a $3.8 billion valuation in 2021). Adcock seeded the company with $100 million of personal capital, betting that labor shortages in physically demanding industries and rapid advances in neural network control had created the right conditions for a commercially viable humanoid robot. Headquarters moved from Sunnyvale to a 98,700-square-foot campus at 3960 North First Street in San Jose, California, in March 2025, housing engineering, fleet operations, and early manufacturing. Figure has released three robot generations. Figure 01 was the initial proof-of-concept prototype. Figure 02 is deployed at BMW's Spartanburg, South Carolina manufacturing plant, where it assembled more than 30,000 vehicles with 99% accuracy. Figure 03, unveiled on October 9, 2025, stands 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighs 61 kilograms, carries 20-kilogram payloads, and walks at 1.2 metres per second. All three generations run on Helix, Figure's proprietary vision-language-action neural network developed entirely in-house after the company ended its OpenAI collaboration in February 2025. In February 2025, Figure announced it had completed Helix without OpenAI, describing it as a breakthrough in fully end-to-end robot AI that gives the company ownership of both the hardware and the AI stack. In May 2026, a team of Figure robots ran a continuous autonomous package-handling shift for nearly a week, achieving 98.5% of human throughput in a 10-hour head-to-head test. Figure 03 is designed specifically for BotQ, Figure's dedicated manufacturing facility in California launched in March 2025 with 12,000-unit annual capacity. Consumer home pilot programs for Figure 03 are planned for late 2026. Figure's funding rounds: $100 million personal seed from Adcock in 2022; $70 million Series A in May 2023; $675 million Series B in February 2024 at a $2.6 billion post-money valuation, with Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI Startup Fund, Bezos Expeditions, Intel Capital, Salesforce, LG Technology Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and T-Mobile Ventures participating; and a $1 billion-plus Series C in September 2025 at a $39 billion post-money valuation, led by Parkway Venture Capital with Brookfield Asset Management and Macquarie Capital. Total raised across all rounds stands at approximately $1.9 billion. Figure sells robots directly to enterprise customers in manufacturing and logistics. The planned long-term model adds a Robot-as-a-Service layer covering hardware maintenance, Helix software updates, and fleet management. The BMW Spartanburg deployment is a revenue-generating commercial contract. UPS is in active discussions to deploy Figure robots in parcel sorting facilities. No public revenue figures or per-unit pricing have been disclosed as of June 2026. Brett Adcock is Figure's founder and CEO. The board includes Peter Welinder, Jesse Coors-Blankenship, Gregg Hill, Grant Hosking, Lee Randaccio, Dana Berlin, Logan Berkowitz, and Colby Adcock. As of May 2026, Figure employs approximately 658 people, up 58% year-over-year from around 415 in 2024. Most staff work from the San Jose headquarters; Figure has recruited heavily from Boston Dynamics, Tesla Autopilot, and Google DeepMind. Figure's mission is to build the world's first commercially viable autonomous humanoid robot for tasks that are unsafe, physically draining, or chronically unfilled due to labor shortages. Helix, the company's core research output, is an end-to-end VLA neural network that takes raw camera input and natural language and produces motor commands directly, skipping separate perception, planning, and control modules. This design is intended to improve generalization to novel environments. Figure keeps Helix proprietary and publishes minimal external research, prioritizing product development over open publication. Primary competitors include Tesla (Optimus robot), Agility Robotics (Digit, majority-owned by Amazon), Boston Dynamics (Atlas humanoid), 1X Technologies (backed by OpenAI's Startup Fund after the Figure-OpenAI split), and Physical Intelligence in the robot AI foundation model space. Figure's capital access at a $39 billion valuation and BotQ's 12,000-unit annual capacity give it a manufacturing runway that most peers lack. Boston Dynamics holds a 15-year reliability advantage from fielded robots; Tesla's Optimus benefits from Gigafactory-scale manufacturing that BotQ cannot currently match. All three Figure generations target structured indoor industrial environments; outdoor unstructured settings remain unaddressed. Figure's robots are physical hardware subject to OSHA workplace safety requirements in the US, CE marking for EU commercial deployments, and ISO robot safety standards, not the EU AI Act's software-specific GPAI obligations. The company is a US-incorporated C-Corp with no disclosed export control issues. No trust center, data processing agreement, or enterprise data retention policy has been published; Helix inference runs on the robot itself rather than streaming to a cloud, which limits the data privacy surface. Enterprise customers negotiate applicable data handling terms in their commercial contracts. Figure's 2026 priorities include expanding the BMW Spartanburg deployment, converting the UPS discussions into a signed contract, ramping BotQ toward 12,000 units per year, and launching home pilot programs for Figure 03 by year-end. The company's stated goal is 200,000 robots shipped by 2029. An IPO has been publicly discussed but no filing has been made as of June 2026; secondary-market prices in early 2026 implied modest valuation compression below the $39 billion Series C headline.

Mission

To build the world's first commercially viable autonomous humanoid robot for tasks that are unsafe, undesirable, or chronically unfilled.

Products

Links

Website · Twitter · LinkedIn · Blog

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Figure AI and what do they build?

Figure AI is a humanoid robotics company incorporated in San Jose, California in 2022 by Brett Adcock. The company builds general-purpose bipedal robots designed to perform physical labor in industrial and, eventually, household environments. Its current lineup includes Figure 02, deployed commercially at BMW's Spartanburg, South Carolina manufacturing plant, and Figure 03, released in October 2025 as a ground-up redesign for mass production at 5 feet 8 inches tall with a 20-kilogram payload capacity. All robots are powered by Helix, Figure's proprietary vision-language-action neural network that converts camera input and natural language commands directly into motor actions without hand-coded intermediate steps. Figure's BotQ factory in California produces up to 12,000 robots per year and is designed to scale to 100,000 annually. The company's robots are not sold to individual consumers as of June 2026; current buyers are enterprise customers in automotive and logistics industries.

Who founded Figure AI and who is the CEO?

Figure AI was founded in 2022 solely by Brett Adcock, who serves as CEO. Before Figure, Adcock co-founded Vettery, a digital hiring marketplace acquired by Adecco in 2018, and Archer Aviation, an electric vertical takeoff and landing company he took public via SPAC at a $3.8 billion valuation in 2021; he stepped back from Archer's day-to-day CEO role in late 2022 to start Figure. Adcock invested $100 million of his own capital to seed the company. The board includes Peter Welinder, Jesse Coors-Blankenship, Gregg Hill, Grant Hosking, Lee Randaccio, Dana Berlin, Logan Berkowitz, and Colby Adcock. There have been no public leadership changes since founding. The company's engineering leadership has been built primarily by recruiting from Boston Dynamics, Tesla Autopilot, and Google DeepMind.

How much funding has Figure AI raised?

Figure AI has raised approximately $1.9 billion in total funding across four rounds. Brett Adcock personally invested $100 million as seed capital when the company was founded in 2022. The Series A raised $70 million in May 2023. The Series B closed in February 2024 at a $2.6 billion post-money valuation, raising $675 million from Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI's Startup Fund, Bezos Expeditions, Intel Capital, Salesforce, LG Technology Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and T-Mobile Ventures. The Series C closed in September 2025, raising over $1 billion at a $39 billion post-money valuation, led by Parkway Venture Capital with Brookfield Asset Management, Macquarie Capital, and most Series B investors continuing. Figure has not disclosed revenue or ARR figures, and secondary-market prices in early 2026 implied modest compression below the $39 billion Series C headline. No IPO filing has been made as of June 2026.

What products does Figure AI make?

Figure AI produces three generations of humanoid robots: Figure 01 (the initial prototype), Figure 02 (the first commercial deployment), and Figure 03 (the current production model, launched October 9, 2025). Figure 03 stands 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighs 61 kilograms, walks at 1.2 metres per second, and carries payloads up to 20 kilograms; it was designed from the ground up for high-volume manufacturing at BotQ. Each robot is powered by Helix, Figure's in-house vision-language-action neural network, giving the robots the ability to follow natural language instructions and adapt to new environments without task-specific programming. Figure 02 is deployed at BMW's Spartanburg plant for automotive assembly. Figure 03 is sold to industrial customers in manufacturing and logistics, with home pilot programs planned for late 2026. Neither robot has a publicly advertised price; commercial pricing is negotiated through enterprise contracts.

Where is Figure AI headquartered and how big is the team?

Figure AI's headquarters is a 98,700-square-foot industrial campus at 3960 North First Street in San Jose, California, leased in March 2025 from EQT Exeter; this is nearly four times the size of the company's prior Sunnyvale office. The facility houses engineering, fleet operations, and early robot assembly. As of May 2026, Figure employs approximately 658 people, representing a 58% year-over-year increase from around 415 in 2024. Most employees work from the San Jose headquarters. BotQ, Figure's dedicated manufacturing facility in California, is a separate site that handles high-volume robot production. The company has been hiring heavily across robotics engineering, AI research, and mechanical design disciplines since closing its Series C in September 2025.

What is Figure AI's mission or research focus?

Figure AI's stated mission is to build the world's first commercially viable autonomous humanoid robot, targeting tasks that are unsafe, physically demanding, or chronically unfilled due to labor shortages. The company's primary technical output is Helix, an end-to-end vision-language-action neural network that takes raw camera input and natural language and produces motor commands in a single unified model, without separate perception, planning, or control modules. Figure ended its collaboration with OpenAI in February 2025 after developing Helix fully in-house, achieving full ownership of both hardware and AI. CEO Brett Adcock has publicly stated the goal of robots performing unsupervised, multi-day tasks in unfamiliar home environments by end of 2026. Figure publishes minimal external research, choosing to protect Helix's architecture as a proprietary asset. Safety is validated through real-world commercial testing rather than any published third-party evaluation program.

Is Figure AI compliant with SOC 2, GDPR, or HIPAA?

Figure AI is a robotics hardware company, not a cloud software provider, and does not hold SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA, or GDPR certifications in the way that AI SaaS companies do. Its compliance obligations focus on physical product safety: OSHA workplace safety requirements in the US, CE marking for any EU commercial deployments, and ISO robot safety standards such as ISO 10218. Figure does not operate a consumer data cloud and has not published a trust center, data retention policy, or data processing agreement as of June 2026. Helix inference runs on the robot itself rather than streaming to a central cloud service, which limits the data privacy surface area considerably compared to a hosted AI service. Enterprise customers deploying Figure robots in their facilities negotiate any applicable data handling terms directly in their commercial contracts. The company's website has a privacy policy covering marketing and job-application data.

Who are Figure AI's main competitors?

Figure AI's main competitors in humanoid robotics are Tesla (Optimus robot), Agility Robotics (Digit, majority-owned by Amazon for logistics deployment), Boston Dynamics (Atlas humanoid), 1X Technologies (backed by OpenAI's Startup Fund after the Figure-OpenAI split in February 2025), and Apptronik (backed by Google). In the robot AI foundation model space, Physical Intelligence competes on the software layer. Figure's primary advantages are its capital access at a $39 billion valuation, which enables rapid hardware iteration, and its BotQ manufacturing facility, which is further along toward volume production than most competitors. Boston Dynamics has a significant durability and reliability advantage built over 15 years of fielded robots, an area where Figure is still proving itself commercially. Tesla's Optimus benefits from Gigafactory-scale manufacturing capacity that BotQ's current 12,000-unit annual throughput cannot match. The most visible gap in Figure's lineup is outdoor unstructured environments: all three Figure robot generations are optimized for structured indoor industrial settings.