Figure AI Company Profile: History, Funding, Robots, Leadership and Controversies
Updated: 7 days ago
Figure AI is a Californian company building general-purpose humanoid robots, valued at USD 39 billion in its September 2025 funding round. Founded only in 2022, it has moved through three robot generations and built its own factory. This profile sets out its history, funding, robots and leadership, and the questions raised about it.
Figure AI at a Glance
Fact | Detail |
Company | Figure AI, Inc. |
Founded | 2022, by Brett Adcock |
Headquarters | San Jose, California, USA |
Employees | About 600 |
Valuation | USD 39 billion, September 2025 |
Current robot | Figure 03 |
AI model | Helix |
Factory | BotQ |
Stock listing | None; privately held |
Chief Executive | Brett Adcock, founder |
Company History
Brett Adcock founded Figure in 2022 and introduced its first prototype, Figure 01, a two-legged robot aimed at logistics and warehouse work. In January 2024 the company announced a partnership with BMW to use humanoids in car manufacturing, and a month later it raised USD 675 million and announced a collaboration with OpenAI on AI models for its robots. That collaboration ended about a year later; Adcock said language models had become a smaller problem than fast robot control, and the company developed its own model, Helix.
Key milestones
2022: Founded; Figure 01 introduced.
January 2024: BMW partnership announced.
February 2024: USD 675 million raised; OpenAI collaboration announced.
August 2024: Figure 02 introduced.
Early 2025: BotQ factory and Helix announced.
September 2025: More than USD 1 billion raised at a USD 39 billion valuation.
October 2025: Figure 03 introduced.
January 2026: Helix 02 released.
April 2026: More than 350 Figure 03 units reported delivered.
August 2026: Index, a platform for collecting training data from people, launched.
Funding
Date | Amount | Investors and valuation |
May 2023 | USD 70 million | Investors including Brett Adcock and Parkway Venture Capital |
February 2024 | USD 675 million | Jeff Bezos, Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel and the investment arms of Amazon and OpenAI; valuation USD 2.6 billion |
September 2025 | More than USD 1 billion | Brookfield, Intel, Macquarie Capital, Nvidia, Parkway Venture Capital, Qualcomm, Salesforce and T-Mobile; valuation USD 39 billion |
The valuation rose fifteenfold in nineteen months. In September 2026 the company said it planned to spend more than USD 3.5 billion on Nvidia processors by the following year.
Robots and Technology
Product | Description |
Figure 01 | First prototype, 2022 |
Figure 02 | 2024; five-fingered hands with 16 degrees of freedom, a payload of up to 25 kilograms and six cameras |
Figure 03 | 2025; 1.7 meters tall, cameras in each hand, fingertip sensors that detect forces as small as 3 grams, soft coverings and wireless charging |
Helix | Vision-language-action AI model; Helix 02 extended it to control of the whole body |
BotQ | Manufacturing facility designed for 12,000 robots a year |
In April 2026 Figure reported output of one robot per hour, and by June about 740 of its robots were said to be operating, more than its 600 employees. Adcock has also announced a planned home lease at about USD 600 a month and said the design of Figure 04 is settled.
Leadership
Name | Role |
Brett Adcock | Founder and chief executive |
Open Questions and Controversies
The BMW work: a 2025 article in Fortune questioned whether the scope of the BMW deployment had been overstated.
Safety lawsuit: in November 2025 a former head of product safety sued, alleging dismissal after raising concerns about the strength of the robots.
Secondary share sales: in April 2025 the company sent cease-and-desist letters to brokers promoting its private stock without authorization.
Customers: apart from BMW, public sources name few commercial customers.
Can You Invest in Figure AI?
Not on a public market. Figure is privately held, and the company has objected to unauthorized secondary trading in its shares.
Strengths and Challenges
Strengths
Very large funding and well-known backers.
Fast hardware iteration and its own AI model and factory.
Challenges
A valuation far ahead of disclosed commercial results.
Heavy planned spending on computing.
Unresolved questions about deployments and safety.
Current Catalogue Coverage
Catalogue checked on 15 October 2026: 1 associated product records. The links below are representative entries, rather than a claim that every historical model is currently available.
Figure AI FAQ
Is Figure AI publicly traded?
No. It is a privately held company.
Who founded Figure AI?
Brett Adcock, in 2022.
What is Figure AI worth?
Its funding round in September 2025 valued it at USD 39 billion.
What is Helix?
Figure's own vision-language-action AI model, which controls its humanoid robots.
Does Figure AI still work with OpenAI?
No. The collaboration announced in February 2024 ended about a year later.
Sources
Wikipedia: Figure AI
