Agile Robots Raises $500M at an $8.5 Billion Valuation After Buying Its Way Into Factories
Backed by SoftBank and Nvidia, the Munich robotics group built an industrial automation business first, and treats its Agile ONE humanoids as an add-on rather than the pitch.
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Illustrative photo of a warehouse robot; it is not an Agile Robots machine, Agile ONE, or any factory named here. Photo: antoniohez / Pixabay, Pixabay Content License.
While most humanoid robotics startups build a bipedal prototype first and then spend years persuading manufacturers to let them onto the factory floor, Munich-based Agile Robots took the opposite route. On November 12, 2026, the company announced a $500 million Series F at an $8.5 billion valuation, led by SoftBank Group with participation from NVIDIA, Hitachi, Hitachi Ventures, and T.Capital, according to HumanoidMegaHub.
The round brings Agile Robots' total funding to $2 billion, that account says, and will finance U.S. expansion, additional manufacturing capacity in Germany, and new international markets. The round is also a bet on a "factory-first" strategy: over the past three years, Agile Robots acquired system integrators, mobile robots, research arms, and plant engineering firms that already work on industrial production lines.
Six acquisitions that built the group
Spun out of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in 2018 by CEO Dr. Zhaopeng Chen and Peter Meusel, Agile Robots spent its first years selling cobots and robotic arms such as the Diana series. Beginning in September 2023, according to HumanoidMegaHub, the company went on an acquisition run across Europe and Asia and assembled a 3,500-person industrial group:
- BÄR Automation (September 2023). A majority stake in a German system integrator founded in 1972, with more than 140 people, giving Agile Robots a way to deliver turnkey production cells.
- idealworks (October 2023 / September 2025). BMW Group's autonomous mobile robot spin-off, which operates more than 850
iw.hubrobots inside BMW plants, turning BMW into a fleet customer. - Franka Robotics (November 2023). The insolvent research-arm pioneer Franka Emika, about 100 staff, reportedly for €28.5 million to €33 million.
- audEERING (March 2025). A majority stake in a voice-AI spin-off from TU Munich, more than 70 people, working on speech and emotion analysis for noisy factory floors.
- Krause Automation (November 2025 / April 2026). thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering, about 650 engineers across 10 sites in Europe and North America.
- XNG Automation (August 2026). A majority stake in a factory and intralogistics integrator in Bengaluru, about 200 people, where Agile already supplies Foxconn and Tata Electronics.
Executive Director Rory Sexton, a former Apple executive, told HumanoidMegaHub that "the factory is the product." Instead of asking a plant manager to redesign an assembly line around an unproven humanoid, Agile Robots acts as the integrator, winning contracts with arms and mobile robots before putting humanoids into stations where a bipedal or wheeled machine makes economic sense. That quotation and the acquisition list are from that one account.
Agile ONE
That installed base, which HumanoidMegaHub puts at more than 20,000 robotic solutions worldwide, is the company's argument for having industrial training data that pure-play humanoid startups lack. Its industrial humanoid, Agile ONE, launched in November 2025. The same account says it stands 174 cm tall, weighs 69 kg, has 40 degrees of freedom, carries roughly 20 kg, and uses five-fingered hands with 21 joints each.
The company also ships Agile ONE S for research and, in October 2026, teamed with NVIDIA on Agile ONE SN, a compact research humanoid preconfigured with Jetson Thor and Isaac GR00T, with plans to build 1,000 to 2,000 units next year. On software, HumanoidMegaHub says Agile Robots trains models in the Industrial AI Cloud operated by Deutsche Telekom and NVIDIA in Munich, and partnered with Google DeepMind in March 2026 to integrate Gemini Robotics models. A new facility in Fürstenfeldbruck, near Munich, can produce up to 10,000 legged and wheeled humanoids a year, with wheeled configurations leading current factory shipments. Those capacity and specification figures are the company's, as relayed by that outlet, and were not checked against a filing.
Revenue, as estimated
What the outlet says sets Agile Robots apart is revenue. Estimates from Sacra, cited by HumanoidMegaHub, put revenue at roughly €200 million in 2024 and $339 million in 2025, with guidance of $690 million for 2026. At an $8.5 billion valuation, that implied multiple is about 12 times the 2026 figure. Those are estimates, not audited results. The same account contrasts that with Figure AI's $39 billion valuation in late 2025, Agility Robotics' early November 2026 Nasdaq debut under the ticker AGLT, and volume races by Agibot and Neura Robotics. The comparisons are that outlet's framing.
The execution tests are also that outlet's: integrating six acquisitions across Germany, the United States and India, absorbing the Krause unit, and competing in the U.S. against Figure, Agility, Apptronik and Tesla while foreign robotics hardware draws more regulatory attention.
How we reported this
This article follows HumanoidMegaHub's November 12, 2026 account of the round, the acquisition history, the robot specifications and the Sacra revenue estimates. The funding total, valuation and investor list are attributed to that report of the company's announcement. Revenue figures are estimates. No company filing was reviewed for this draft.
Sources
- HumanoidMegaHub, "Agile Robots' $8.5 billion bet: a humanoid maker that bought the whole factory first," November 12, 2026. humanoidmegahub.com
DailyMech used AI tools to help research and draft this article; it was fact-checked by our editors.