SoftBank-led Agile Robots raises $500 million; NVIDIA and Hitachi also participate

Reuters reported on November 12, 2026, that Germany-based Agile Robots raised $500 million in a round led by SoftBank, valuing the company at $8.5 billion. NVIDIA and Hitachi also participated. According to Agile Robots, the latest funding brings its total funds raised to $2 billion.

Agile Robots said it will use the funding for its U.S. expansion and to increase production capacity, among other purposes, tying the financing to manufacturing and business expansion plans. A concrete question in assessing execution is how the Fürstenfeldbruck facility’s annual capacity of up to 10,000 units will translate into actual production and deployments.

The $500 million represents one-quarter of the $2 billion in total funding Agile Robots said it has raised. The announcement outlined not only the size of the round but also that the funds will go toward U.S. expansion and increased production capacity. However, the company did not specify how much will be allocated to either purpose or when the plans will be carried out, so the announcement does not indicate which will take priority. On production, the company cited annual capacity of up to 10,000 units at its Fürstenfeldbruck facility alongside a record of 20,000 industrial robot solutions implemented worldwide. The former is the production capacity of a specific facility, while the latter is a cumulative count of deployed solutions; they are not comparable measures of scale. Publicly available materials also do not specify the product mix or actual utilization rate linking the two. The extent to which the facility’s capacity translates into actual production and expanded deployments is therefore a key point in assessing the plan. A related article in Physical AI News, Bloomberg reports on SoftBank’s backing of Agile Robots, also covered SoftBank’s support on November 12, 2026. The supplied summary does not specify the form of that support or a breakdown of the amount, so even when considered alongside Reuters’ report on the latest funding, the specific composition of the financing cannot be confirmed. In terms of its business structure, the company’s plan to direct the funding toward production capacity and U.S. expansion sits alongside its existing production facility and deployment record. This can be read as a plan focused not only on robot development but also on how to scale manufacturing and deployment. However, the announcement does not say whether U.S. expansion refers to sales, development or production. Nor does it describe a system for using data from deployed systems for training or product improvements, so deployment figures cannot be taken as evidence of a learning base. Points to watch include additional production capacity and utilization, the specifics of U.S. expansion, allocation of the funding and the terms governing use of data from deployed systems.

Agile Robots said it will use the funding for U.S. business expansion, increased production capacity and development of new markets, among other purposes. It did not disclose how the funds will be allocated among these uses. The company has a production facility in Fürstenfeldbruck, Germany, which it says can produce up to 10,000 legged or wheeled humanoid robots a year. It also says it has implemented 20,000 industrial robot solutions worldwide.