Agile Robots, a robotics company based in Munich, has closed a $500 million Series F funding round at a valuation of $8.5 billion, according to a company press release dated 12 November 2026. The company said SoftBank Group led the round, with participation from NVIDIA, Hitachi Group (Hitachi and Hitachi Ventures), T.Capital and others, and that the round brings its total invested capital to $2 billion. Reuters and AFP reported the round the same day.

What the company says the money is for

According to the release, the funding will support expansion in the United States, additional production capacity, including in Germany, and entry into new markets. The company said it plans to “strengthen its presence in the United States and accelerate the development of innovative robotics applications.”

The release says Agile Robots opened a production site at Fürstenfeldbruck, near Munich, early in 2026 “to meet rapidly rising demand,” and that the site “has the capacity to produce up to 10,000 legged and wheeled humanoid robots annually.” The release does not give a figure for how many robots the site has built so far.

The investors

The release describes the investors as spanning “the automotive, artificial intelligence, digital and industrial technology sectors” and names NVIDIA, Hitachi Group (Hitachi and Hitachi Ventures) and T.Capital. It does not name the automotive investor. Trending Topics described T.Capital as Deutsche Telekom’s investment arm. Neither the release nor the news reports read by Lens gave the amount SoftBank invested.

Dennis Chang, managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, said in the release: “We believe Physical AI will transform industries. Agile Robots combines deep robotics expertise with the ability to execute at industrial scale, enabling it to bring Physical AI into everyday operations.” Agile Robots’ news page also lists a partnership with Hitachi on physical AI for manufacturing, dated 29 September 2026.

SoftBank Vision Fund 2 also led the company’s previous publicly reported round. Separately, Lens reported on 9 November that Chinese regulators blocked SoftBank’s planned $5.4 billion purchase of ABB’s robotics division, according to The Robot Report.

What the founder said

Chief executive and founder Zhaopeng Chen said in the release: “Physical AI will fundamentally change how the world builds, moves and makes things.” He added: “This funding allows us to accelerate our global expansion, strengthen our presence in key markets and build out production capacity.”

In a post published under his name, Chen wrote that he founded Agile Robots SE in 2018 “because I believed robots belong where real work happens,” and thanked SoftBank Group, NVIDIA, Hitachi Group (Hitachi & Hitachi Ventures) and T.Capital. A company spokesman told AFP that Agile Robots is now Europe’s most valuable physical AI robotics company.

The company, by its own figures

  • Founded in Munich in 2018 as a spin-off from the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
  • More than 3,500 employees from almost 60 nations, and over 2,000 research and development staff.
  • Over 650 patents filed and more than 20,000 square metres of lab space.
  • 20,000 industrial robotic solutions deployed for customers in automotive, consumer electronics, logistics and other industries.
  • Products: humanoid and mobile robots, robotic arms and hands, and the software and AI models behind them.
  • Subsidiaries: BÄR Automation, Franka Robotics, Idealworks and Krause Automation, which the release says was “recently acquired from thyssenkrupp AG.”

The company has not published revenue figures, according to Trending Topics.

Earlier funding

The previous round with public figures was a $220 million Series C in September 2021, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, according to Yicai Global and eeNews Europe. Both reported a valuation above $1 billion. eeNews Europe listed Chimera Investments, GL Ventures, Sequoia China, Linear Capital, Xiaomi, Foxconn Industrial Internet and Midas among the investors in that round. Agile Robots said in its 2021 release that it had raised more than $130 million in 2020.

On 2 June 2026, TNW, citing Bloomberg, reported that SoftBank was in early talks to back a funding round of roughly $800 million for Agile Robots, with SoftBank possibly putting in more than $300 million. The report said amounts and terms could change. The round announced in November is $500 million. Trending Topics noted the difference and said the reason for it was not known.

By Lens arithmetic, the $2 billion total less the $500 million Series F leaves about $1.5 billion raised before this round. Lens did not find public figures for Series D or Series E rounds.

Other recent announcements

Headlines on Agile Robots’ news page list an investment in XNG Automation in India (3 August 2026), the launch of Agile ONE SN, described as a humanoid reference platform built on NVIDIA Isaac GR00T (21 October 2026), and a project with Audi on mobile humanoids in automotive logistics, supported by Dassault Systèmes and NVIDIA (21 October 2026).

Sources and notes

Read in full: Agile Robots’ press release, “Physical AI leader Agile Robots raises $500 million Series F at $8.5 billion valuation to accelerate global growth”. Its dateline is 12 November 2026, but the date stamp on the company’s web page reads 10.11.2026. Also read in full: the company’s September 2021 Series C release, which gives the 2020 figure but does not show the round amount on the page. Read as summaries through a web reader: Reuters via Investing.com (12 November 2026), AFP via France 24 (12 November 2026), Trending Topics (12 November 2026, which says the article was co-produced with AI), TNW (2 June 2026), Yicai Global (10 September 2021) and eeNews Europe (13 September 2021). Lens did not read Bloomberg’s June report directly. The euro conversions differ: AFP gave the valuation as €7.7 billion and Trending Topics as about €7.6 billion; Lens uses the dollar figures from the release. Reuters, as summarised, gave the 2,000 figure as research and development specialists; the release gives more than 3,500 employees in total. The spokesman’s remark to AFP is paraphrased from a summary, not quoted. Chen’s post was supplied to Lens as pasted text; Lens did not view it where it was first published. The “Other recent announcements” section is based on headlines on the company’s news page; Lens did not read those releases. No source read by Lens gave SoftBank’s share of the round, the automotive investor’s name, revenue or a timetable for a stock listing. Thumbnail photo: “Franka Emika2” by Ims via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; cropped, with background logos blurred. It shows a Franka Emika robot arm, photographed in March 2017. According to a Franka Robotics notice of 20 November 2023, Franka Emika was renamed Franka Robotics GmbH after its acquisition by Agile Robots AG; the 2026 release lists Franka Robotics as a subsidiary. Illustrative photo; it does not show Agile Robots’ humanoid robots or the events described.

Image: Lens chart built from the figures above. Thumbnail: Ims via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).