Skild AI, a company specializing in foundation models for robots, appears to have seen its valuation more than triple within a mere seven-month period.
According to Bloomberg, the startup secured a $1.4 billion Series C funding round, elevating its valuation to over $14 billion. SoftBank spearheaded this investment round, with additional contributions from Nvidia, Macquarie Group, 1789 Capital, and other investors.
Bloomberg noted that Skild AI’s previous funding round, completed last summer, set its valuation at $4.5 billion. Although the precise amount of that round wasn’t publicly revealed — estimates placed it around $500 million — Skild AI’s CEO, Deepak Pathak, informed Bloomberg that the company’s total capital raised now exceeds $2 billion.
TechCrunch has contacted Skild AI to obtain further details regarding its past fundraising activities and will provide updates as new information becomes available.
Established in 2023, Skild AI develops versatile robotic software and foundational models designed for integration into diverse robots and tasks, minimizing the need for extensive extra training. The company anticipates that these models will also be capable of learning through observing human actions.
Recently, there’s been significant momentum in developing this kind of adaptive, ‘learn-as-you-go’ robotic software, coinciding with the growing interest in humanoid robots.
A primary obstacle to wider robot adoption in both personal and industrial settings is the considerable training needed for robots to master individual tasks. Enabling robots to learn and adjust autonomously would significantly accelerate their integration.
Field AI represents another startup aiming to create readily adaptable robotic software. Similarly, 1X, the company behind the Neo humanoid, recently launched a world model to advance this objective.