SoftBank is in talks to invest $500 million in Skild AI, a software company that is creating a fundamental model for robotics that is valued at $4 billion, Bloomberg and the Financial Times report.
Last July, the two-year-old company raised a preliminary round of funding of $300 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion from investors including Jeff Bezos, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Coatue Management.
Skild founders Deepak Pathak and Abhinav Gupta told TechCrunch in an interview last July that the company’s artificial intelligence model can be applied to different types of robots. According to them, the generalized model can be modified for a specific domain and use case.
The intersection of robotics and artificial intelligence is attracting significant investor interest.
Over the past year, investors, including Bezos, have increased funding for AI-powered robotics companies.
Physical Intelligence, a startup that raised $400 million in November at a pre-money valuation of $2 billion, is another startup that claims to develop the “brains” for a wide range of robots. Jeff Bezos, Lux Capital, and Thrive Capital led the round.
Last February, Figure AI, a startup developing a humanoid robot with artificial intelligence, raised $675 million at a valuation of $2.6 billion from Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia, Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, and Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions).
