Agile Robots Raises $500M From SoftBank and Nvidia at an $8.5B Valuation

In 2021, SoftBank put $220 million into a Munich robot maker at a valuation of about $1 billion. On Thursday it came back to lead a $500 million round that values the same company, Agile Robots, at $8.5 billion, with Nvidia, Hitachi and T.Capital joining in. The startup that spun out of the German Aerospace Center in 2018 now has more than 3,500 employees and 20,000 industrial robot systems in the field, and it will spend the money on a bigger presence in the United States and more production capacity, including in Germany.

From a DLR Lab to 20,000 Robot Systems

Agile Robots began in 2018 as a spin-off of DLR, the German Aerospace Center. Zhaopeng Chen and Peter Meusel founded it together with eight other DLR experts, and Chen still runs it as chief executive.

The company now sells most of what a factory needs to automate a line: robot arms such as the Diana 7, a robotic hand, mobile robots, the Agile ONE humanoid and the software that ties them together. It has also brought in neighbors. Franka Robotics, idealworks, BÄR Automation and Krause Automation are now part of the group.

The scale shows in the numbers. Agile Robots has deployed 20,000 industrial robotic solutions in automotive, consumer electronics, healthcare and service, employs more than 3,500 people from almost 60 nations and holds over 650 patents, with more than 2,000 people working in research and development.

Selling arms by the thousand is one business. Building humanoids by the thousand is another, and that is what the newest factory is for.

A Bavarian Plant With Room for 27 Humanoids a Day

Early in 2026, Agile Robots opened a humanoid production site in Fürstenfeldbruck, a town west of Munich. It makes both legged and wheeled versions.

At full speed, that is about 27 robots a day, every day of the year. It is capacity, not a sales figure: the company has not said how many humanoids it has shipped. The range runs from the full-size Agile ONE to a research model, and one version uses Nvidia's Isaac GR00T robot models, which helps explain why Nvidia joined this round.

“Physical AI will fundamentally change how the world builds, moves and makes things. — Zhaopeng Chen, Agile Robots CEO and founder”

Chen describes the goal as intelligent robots working alongside people in factories and warehouses, taken out of the lab and into industrial production. The investor who has watched that plan the longest is the one who led the round.

Why SoftBank Came Back Five Years Later

SoftBank has backed Agile Robots since 2021, when it led the $220 million Series C that made the company Germany's first robotics unicorn. Bloomberg reported in June that SoftBank was discussing a round of about $800 million. The final figure is $500 million, which brings the total Agile Robots has raised to $2 billion.

Dennis Chang, a managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, said the company “combines deep robotics expertise with the ability to execute at industrial scale, enabling it to bring Physical AI into everyday operations.”

The money has three jobs: a stronger presence in the United States, where Agile Robots already runs a regional headquarters in Palo Alto; new applications and new markets; and more production capacity, including in Germany. Agile Robots does not publish its revenue, so the plant's output and the American customers it signs will be the clearest measure of the bet.

A lab spin-off from 2018 now has $2 billion raised, 20,000 systems at work and a factory with room for 10,000 humanoids a year. The next number to watch is how many of them roll out of it.