Exclusive-Ray Kurzweil's humanoid robot startup in talks for $100 million investment
The company, Beyond Imagination, will be valued at $500 million, and venture capital firm Gauntlet Ventures will be the round's sole investor.
Kurzweil is known for popularizing the term "the singularity," when he predicted two decades ago that by 2045, artificial intelligence would surpass human intelligence and embark on a path of accelerating self-enhancement. These ideas, which once seemed like science fiction, are now viewed as mainstream by many technologists.
Beyond Imagination is co-founded by scientist, entrepreneur and filmmaker Harry Kloor. The company has developed a humanoid robot — the Beyond Bot - and accompanying AI models that it intends to deploy in industrial settings such as factories, pharmaceutical plants and chip manufacturing facilities, said Gauntlet Ventures co-founder Oliver Carmack.
The company has been testing its robots and is now looking for large enterprises into which they can be deployed, Carmack said, adding that he chose to back Beyond Imagination because of its potential to revolutionize U.S. manufacturing and address the projected global shortage of skilled labor.
Major tech companies including Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Tesla, alongside various startups, are rushing to make humanoid robots, and are betting that recent advances in AI will also lead to breakthroughs in robots and automation. In October last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that "a lot of progress" has been made with its humanoid robot, Optimus, which could perform many daily tasks.
Progress on robots has been slow, however, as researchers have found that the language-related AI breakthroughs driving chatbot development have not necessarily helped with understanding of the physical world. Many companies are spending enormous sums to collect the real-world training data necessary to train models that can power robots.
In addition to humanoid robots, Beyond Imagination is also developing Aura, which co-founder Kloor described as a universal operating system for intelligent manufacturing, allowing humans, robots and legacy machines to work together.
Beyond Imagination has attracted an eclectic roster of advisers, including former Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, and onetime Paramount Pictures chairman Jim Gianopulos.
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