Figure

Overview

Figure combines humanoid hardware with AI control to develop robots that manipulate objects in environments designed for people. Its initial focus included manufacturing, logistics and warehousing, with household uses added to later product goals. Those aims do not establish broad commercial availability for every task.⁠[1][2]

Contents17 sections

Key facts

2022Founding

Brett Adcock Brett AdcockBrett Adcock (born April 6, 1986) is a technology entrepreneur who founded humanoid robotics company Figure, AI company Hark and school-security company Cover, after co-founding Vettery and Archer Aviation.Open the full entry, previously a founder of Vettery and Archer Aviation, established Figure in 2022 and served as founder and CEO. When it publicly introduced itself in 2023, the company was based in Sunnyvale, California, with staff drawn from robotics, autonomous vehicles and consumer electronics.⁠[1]

March 2, 2023Figure 01 Unveiled

Figure emerged from stealth and introduced its first-generation Figure 01 project. It reported completing the full-scale build, with testing to follow. The company’s later history dates Figure 01’s first steps to May 2023, distinguishing the public unveiling from the walking milestone.⁠[1][3]

May 24, 2023$70 Million Series A

Figure announced a $70 million Series A led by Parkway Venture Capital, with participation from Adcock, Aliya Capital, Bold Capital Partners, Tamarack Global, FJ Labs and Till Reuter. The funds supported Figure 01 development, its AI data pipeline and commercialization.⁠[4]

February 29, 2024Series B and OpenAI Agreement

Figure announced a $675 million Series B at a $2.6 billion valuation. Investors included Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, NVIDIA, Bezos Expeditions and Parkway. It also signed a humanoid-model collaboration agreement with OpenAI and planned to use Microsoft Azure for training and storage infrastructure.⁠[5]

February 4, 2025Departure From OpenAI Collaboration

Adcock announced that Figure would leave its collaboration agreement with OpenAI, citing progress on an internally developed robot AI system. Decrypt reproduced his original post. The statement concerns the collaboration agreement and does not establish that OpenAI Startup Fund divested its investment.⁠[6][5]

February 20, 2025Helix Introduced

Figure introduced Helix, a vision-language-action model connecting language and visual inputs to upper-body manipulation. Its technical report separates semantic processing in System 2 from fast action control in System 1, and presents two robots cooperating on grocery storage. The reported performance is company-provided experimental evidence.⁠[7]

September 16, 2025Series C Commitments Exceed $1 Billion

Figure reported more than $1 billion in committed Series C capital at a $39 billion post-money valuation. Parkway led the round, with investors including Brookfield, NVIDIA, Macquarie, Intel Capital and Salesforce. Planned uses included robot deployment, Helix compute and BotQ manufacturing; the announcement specifically described committed capital.⁠[8]

October 9, 2025Figure 03 Introduced

The third-generation Figure 03 was redesigned around Helix, home use and manufacturing scale, adding palm cameras, tactile sensing, wireless charging and soft coverings. Figure described planned first-generation BotQ capacity of up to 12,000 robots annually, a capacity figure rather than a count of completed deliveries.⁠[2]

January 27, 2026Helix 02 Whole-Body Control

Helix 02 extended control from the upper body to coordinated walking, balance and manipulation, adding a lower-level System 0. Figure presented an approximately four-minute dishwasher task described as autonomous. That demonstration documents a particular capability, rather than proving reliability across all household environments.⁠[9]

June 25, 2026BMW Pilot and Figure 03 Follow-Up

BMW reported that Figure 02 supported production of more than 30,000 BMW X3 vehicles during a ten-month Spartanburg pilot, positioning sheet-metal parts for welding. The next project used Figure 03 for logistics sequencing. On June 30, Figure described its Hall 52 demonstration combining parts handling and trolley movement.⁠[10][11]

July 6, 2026Discovery Order in Safety-Whistleblower Litigation

Former safety engineer Robert Gruendel alleged retaliatory dismissal after raising safety concerns. Figure attributed his dismissal to performance and counterclaimed over company documents. The court’s order governed return, preservation and disclosure of those documents, expressly leaving the merits of both sides’ claims unresolved.⁠[12]

September 3, 2026Nscale Compute Partnership

Figure and Nscale announced a compute partnership with an initial $3.5 billion commitment and an intention to exceed $6 billion. The agreement targets deployment of up to 100,000 NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs beginning in the second half of 2027, alongside an Nscale strategic investment. These are announced targets and commitments.⁠[13]

September 17, 2026Helix 2.5 Home Evaluation

Figure introduced Helix 2.5 with evaluations of tidying, towel folding and bed making in 30 previously unseen homes. It reported 56% complete-task success with Index pretraining versus 9% without it. Zero-shot refers to evaluation homes and objects; the tasks still used fine-tuning data collected elsewhere.⁠[14]

September 30, 2026Figure 02 Fleet Decommissioning

As the Figure 03 fleet expanded, Figure announced that most Figure 02 robots had been decommissioned, with a few retained at headquarters. It identified BMW, logistics and early household tasks as Figure 02 milestones, and described protecting proprietary hardware as a consideration in disposal.⁠[15]