Figure AI is a humanoid-robotics company based in Sunnyvale, California, founded by Brett Adcock with the goal of building general-purpose humanoid robots for the workforce. The company emerged from stealth in 2023, and on May 24, 2023 it announced a 70 million dollar Series A round led by Parkway Venture Capital to commercialize its first robot, Figure 01.
Figure pitches its robots as a response to labor shortages, targeting structured, repetitive, and often physically demanding jobs first, in warehousing, manufacturing, shipping and logistics, and retail. At the time of the Series A the company had built, integrated, and tested an alpha prototype of Figure 01 and had assembled a team that included Dr. Jerry Pratt, a well-known bipedal-locomotion researcher, as chief technology officer.
Figure went on to draw large later-stage investment and high-profile partnerships, becoming one of the most prominent entrants in the wave of humanoid-robot startups that gathered momentum in the mid-2020s alongside Agility Robotics, Apptronik, and 1X.
For a general reader, Figure is a flagship example of how quickly money and talent flowed into humanoid robotics once advances in AI made flexible, general-purpose machines look commercially plausible rather than merely a research curiosity.