SoftBank Group and Nvidia are in talks to lead an investment of over one billion dollars into Skild AI. This potential funding round would value the software company at approximately fourteen billion dollars. The nearly three-year-old startup was last valued at four point seven billion dollars in May, when it raised five hundred million in a round led by SoftBank with participation from LG Technology Ventures, Samsung, Nvidia, and others. Skild did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Both SoftBank and Nvidia declined to comment.
Unlike other heavily funded startups, Skild AI is not building proprietary hardware. Instead, it is developing a robot-agnostic foundation model that can be customized for various types of robots and use cases. The company unveiled its general-purpose robot model, called Skild Brain, in July. It released videos showing robots performing tasks such as picking up dishes and climbing stairs. The company has also secured strategic partnerships with LG CNS and Hewlett Packard Enterprise to develop its ecosystem.
Investor interest in AI robotics has been steadily growing. Physical Intelligence, another company developing artificial intelligence for a broad range of robots, recently raised six hundred million dollars at a five point six billion dollar valuation. One investor who evaluated but declined to fund Physical Intelligence noted that its model is still in early stages of development.
In September, Figure, a company developing a humanoid robot, raised more than one billion dollars at a thirty-nine billion dollar valuation. Separately, several months ago, another humanoid robot developer named 1X was in talks to secure as much as one billion dollars at a ten billion dollar valuation.