AI is driving up venture interest in robotics, propelling the sector forward and fueling a burgeoning ecosystem beyond hardware.
Last year, investors poured $6.1 billion of VC dollars into robotics, up 19% from 2023, according to PitchBook data.
And the energy isn’t stopping: Just last week, Texas-based Apptronik, a robotics hardware and software maker, announced $350 million in Series A funding.
The robotics vertical has seen continuous growth since at least 2019, with funding increasing 144% from then to 2024, according to PitchBook data. That increase includes an outlier spike in 2021, as well as a sizable increase from 2023’s total of $5.1 billion to 2024’s $6.1 billion haul.
“The balance of where investors are focused in robotics has definitely shifted,” says Srini Ananth, managing director at Intel Capital, whose portfolio includes the AI robotics startup Figure. “There’s a whole ecosystem that’s been kickstarted in the last three years.”
That ecosystem includes startups collecting data, creating AI models tailor-made for robots, and developing robotic fleet management software, among others. Physical Intelligence, for example, a startup developing AI models for robots, secured $400 million in early-stage funding last November from top investors, including Thrive Capital, OpenAI and Jeff Bezos.
The big returns from robotics will kick in once more robots enter commercial spaces typically understaffed or dangerous for humans, says Ananth. AI is turbocharging the abilities of robotics to do these tasks.
“When you put a robot on a construction site, the commercial ROI is evident. You really can’t escape it,” he says. “Within a month, it plays some part in inspection, surveillance, and all of these things are quick, immediate ROI.”
And robots aren’t limited to heavy industry. Opportunities are emerging for startups developing software to bring robots into sectors like caregiving, according to B Capital chair Howard Morgan, whose firm co-led Apptronik’s $350 million round.
“There’s no question, we’re not tied to a single piece of hardware,” he says. “Right now, we’re just coming out of the too-early stage. This is going to create the next-trillion-dollar companies.”
Megan Woodard/PitchBook News
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