Neura Robotics raises $1.4B to build cognitive humanoid robots and a global robot training gym network

AI era. unlock seamless real-time experiences and new value with Cisco. Um, and we have our next guest in the waiting room, David from Neuro Robotics here with a fantastic fund raise. Welcome to the show, David. How you doing?

Well, what's going on?

Hi. I'm doing great. I made it to your show. So, awesome.

Incredible with this fund raise.

Incredible. We're honored to have you.

It's crazy. We missed you earlier. Uh, but it is your first time on the show. So, please introduce yourself. Tell us a little little bit about the company. We'll go through the fund raise and I have a bunch of questions about robotics because it's always a fascinating topic. But I want

what a what a what a day to be announcing a massive round in physical AI because there's only one person in the world that could raise probably a bigger

Yeah.

AI meets the physical world round and that's Jeff Bezos. But uh we're happy to have you here today and excited to hear what you're working on.

Great honor. Yeah. So a little bit about me. I'm David, founder and CEO of Neuro Robotics, a company out of Germany, so in the southern part. Uh yeah, my goal is actually making robots cognitive and bring them actually in all areas of our lives. And I do think that uh robotics will actually take over any physical task in the future. And I think uh that's also what we're seeing today like big progress having uh let's say physical eye combined basically with uh with a robot body and um doing great things mainly focus right now industrial but looking also into all other sectors. Uh there's this big there's this big uh trend right now in just the the LLM, the frontier AI market where companies will, you know, use the most versatile tool for the job, the frontier model. They'll token max. It'll be really expensive. And then pretty quickly they'll figure out, okay, for this workflow we can actually use an open source model on commodity hardware. We can use a legacy model. We can cut the cost by 85% pretty quickly. And I have this suspicion that that will be the case for humanoid robots. You'll have the humanoid go and you know put the windshield on the car and then pretty quickly realize like wait for onetenth the cost we could have a a cucka robot arm do that and there will be this gradation of what is economically productive for each robot and you will only use the most expensive humanoid for the really really unwieldly task and we won't see a world where everything will be humanoids but what's your thesis long term term.

So first of all like I think this also one of the biggest differentiator from us to others is that we we do believe in different embodiment. So, and what we have today is like what we are using mainly today is like mobile manipulators but always combined with a physical AI brain. And I think this is also uh going but going forward we do we will see more humanoids and I think we will see them in all all areas of our lives and the the reason for that is is more like that that they're having the form factor of a human and I think the whole body like the whole world is basically created around the human and ergonomically let's say um made for humans and this is basically also the main reasoning. um where I think the biggest breakthrough we see right now is is is actually connected to a brain and with more sensing capabilities or so until now we're seeing mainly like all these companies coming up with the vision language action models but here I need to say that that is not enough to bring robots into our fields

it's a little bit like like learning how to swim you can't learn swimming by just watching a video or so it's it's about the nervous system

you got to go right it r/swim

yeah you got to learn it from the Reddit data.

Just read enough comments, you can learn how to swim.

Um, yeah, it is it is interesting. There's something to uh like visual vis

learning to do physical things by just watching videos does work to some degree. It's not it's not full. It's not enough. But I remember growing up uh surfing, snowboarding, hating all these things.

I learned to tie a tie a video, but I was practicing the whole time while I was watching the video. So, I was getting the the input and the reaction.

You were combining that. Yeah,

what I mean actually by that is like you can't just learn things just with your brain and in this dynamic world. So it means actually there is more than brain that's in the nervous system and the reflexes and this is especially needed in the like if you're looking into all kind of task humans do today. Uh it's mainly like the biggest advantage we have is the flexibility of adjusting things like on the environments on different areas and and this is also what we are doing. It's like this is one the video awesome it's it's actually the neura gym it's a place we're building up right now all over the planet um and in every major city you will find them soon. So it's actually a place where you can train robots doing all kind of task uh in the physical world and then more than just the brain basically also the nervous system.

Interesting. Um what other sources of data?

Why wait why all over the world? Yeah.

Why why can't you centralize something like that?

Yeah. So because we want to give like everyone access uh to to actually not just buy a robot to have one and and then figure out you need to train it. So you you have a central place and you can actually build first trust and the second actually you can train them already and use that data with one click you can transfer it to any other robots in your uh in your factory or wherever you need them. So uh for us it's right now important because the the gap we're having right now uh and the difference actually to large language models as we know like like JGPT or others is that this data is not existing. So we do need to build first let's say the infrastructure for it that we can actually create the right data to train actually the physical AI brain behind that and the most easiest way is letting everyone uh or enabling others to to train the robot or to fine-tune the foundation model we built.

What uh what are the biggest opportunities that you guys are working on in Germany? I imagine uh hopefully helping make some of my favorite cars. But uh what do you have going on?

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. I'm also a car lover, so I could have also have a lot of input on on your talk before. So it's like So yeah,

would you go would you go RS Buzz Lightyear Edition or Ferrari Luche Shrek edition?

Shrek guy.

I think it's too easy. Yeah, for sure. Not

cuz you might like Shrek and you might like a GT3 RS. You might like uh Buzz Lightyear and a Luch, but that's not the option. You got to pick one or the other.

No, I'm still the the engine guy. And

okay, there you go. Curious. So yeah, but yes there is a lot of projects especially in the automotive industries and also especially on the supplier side where they have to reduce cost they have to find let's say ways to to be efficient as the others are in Asia or somewhere else on the planet and the only way for that is finding let's say uh some more autonomy or like or bring more autonomy in their fields and uh especially Because like here in Europe, if you're looking uh let's say into 2030, you will see that we have like about 7 million less human labor. So we we do need to have like we need a little solution for that. The only way is embodied AI. Uh something which can do things fully autonomously and as capable as human can do.

How are you thinking about your supply chain? Uh a lot of robotics companies in America are saying we want an American supply chain. Other companies are saying hey we got to move as fast as possible. Realistically, is there gonna be spyw wear in a bolt that we buy from China? Like, let's not worry about that. It is maybe a supply chain risk if they cut you off if you're thinking about uh supply chain resiliency. But what's your approach been? Do you want to source entirely from German German supply chains or European supply chains, Western supply chains or global supply chains?

So, at at this time, we're focusing right now on the like let's say European supply chain. So like I still believe in a global world but uh I do see right now the biggest advantage of like converting them still because the most of the components are there but they need to be still let's say modified to use them for robots here I'm simply talking about even lifetime or I mean through the regulations the lifetime of the sensors for cars are regulated basically so they they break so we have like a renewing uh process going on so and uh for robots like like they're made for 6,000 hours and the robot takes sensors for 40,000 hours. So, and this is still a difference and gap between but uh and that's also I think for us the most important topic like working with those suppliers around us. We are based in Stoodkart where all the good stuff come from like you stuff you talked before about and so there is the Bosch the the like the Porsche the Audi's the like the Mercedes everything here around us and and we are using this supply chain converting it right now into robotics.

Very cool.

Very cool. going further I do think it will be it will not matter so much so it will come all again like wherever you produce so you will have we will have productions also in US and same time also probably in Asia

yeah uh

tell us about the round

odd before we get into the round uh the silliest question you'll ever get

can you ever imagine a robotic use case that would require an internal combustion engine let's say like a V6 humanoid

it would be awesome but not required yet. So, no, but I think the the Boston Dynamic guys, they did an awesome thing. I don't know if you saw the like the the quadripad they built like some years ago, like in the beginning. It was actually in combustion engine as I saw

like so. So, but yes. No, just I'm fully electrified.

Y

um and I but I the cars I'm still loving like with the V12 or V10, I think. There we go.

There you go. It's just

There we go. one of us.

Tell us tell us about the round.

Hit that gong, Jordy.

How much did you raise?

Yes.

So, we raised a 1.4 billion uh US round.

Another one.

Yeah.

Well done.

Right in the face.

You guys are awesome.

Right in the face. Oh, thank you for taking the time to share this.

Great stuff. Are you setting up a you have a US office already or you're setting one up?

Yeah. Yes, we have one and we are setting further. So like as you might see have seen also the investors on this round there are a lot of American players and very important players I would say. So I think this also a sign

where we go. Yes.

Strategics. Great stuff. like yeah because I mean I think it's it's important or like I think something like that was never built like after automotive there was nothing really great coming out of Germany and I think we have to change that or so and um and for that we need partners which are let's say knowing how to scale that how to do it in this time we're living in so and here I do believe in our partnerships also out of US and and Germany

very cool well fantastic

congratulations so much for coming on the show we'll talk to you We'll uh we'll have you back. Have a good rest of your day.

It was awesome to be on the show.

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that's like the best crossover episode.

Could be. What if what if they did a a joint interview?

That'd be great.

PGT.

Yeah.

PT JT