Humanoid robotics company Figure has had quite the few months of activity, with a viral appearance alongside First Lady Melania Trump at the White House and a viral package sorting marathon. The company, which is a rival to Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) announced a new commercial agreement this week.
Figure Lands Robotics Deal
Figure, which was founded by Brett Adcock, announced a commercial agreement with Catalyst Brands, an operator of several former mall staples.
"We'll work to deploy humanoid robots at scale, starting with initial deployment in Reno, NV," Adcock tweeted.
An announcement from the company said the Figure humanoid robots will be deployed into distribution and logistics with a focus on automating "physically demanding tasks within the supply chain."
Catalyst Brands is the operator of JCPenney, Aéropostale and Brooks Brothers. The brand company is owned by Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE:BAM), Simon Property Group (NYSE:SPG), Authentic Brands Group, Shein and former JCPenney investors.
Figure said the partnership shows how the company is leading the transformation of the global workforce, which includes the following:
- Deployment at Scale
- Workforce Modernization
- Strategic Ecosystem Alignment
- Brookfield is an investor in both Catalyst Brands and Figure, and the announcement says it supports the vision for the future of industrial automation.
At the time of Brookfield's investment in Figure in September, the company said it would help Figure with a real-world pretraining dataset and infrastructure to get humanoid robots into commercial settings.
"As we invest in and scale our portfolio, this collaboration with Figure shows how emerging technologies can modernize our operations while strengthening our workforce," Catalyst Brands CEO Marc Rosen said. "When we automate routine tasks, our associates can focus on higher-value work and better serve our customers across all our brands."
Adcock said Catalyst Brands is a "unique opportunity" for Figure in partnership, as the company scales its portfolio.
"Our humanoids provide a standardized labor solution that can be deployed across diverse industries instantly," Adcock said.
Man Vs. Machine?
An appearance of the Figure 3.0 humanoid robot at the White House attracted plenty of attention around the world, including beating the Tesla Optimus robot in appearing at the Washington D.C. landmark.
Outside of that viral moment at the White House, Figure recently went viral for its 200-hour package sorting challenge, which also contained a 10-hour man vs. machine competition streamed live.
In the man vs. machine competition, the Figure 3.0 competed alongside a real human sorting packages by identifying the barcode and placing the item face down on a conveyor belt. The human was forced to take breaks, due to California labor laws, while the robot kept working.
In the 10-hour challenge, the man narrowly won by sorting 12,924 packages, compared to the 12,732 for the Figure robot. The human who won the challenge ended the competition exhausted and complaining that his arm may have broken.
The robot kept going as part of a 200-hour challenge, with five robots swapped out to charge their batteries for a continuous, livestreamed package-sorting event. Over the course of the challenge, the robots sorted 249,560 packages with no hardware failures.
While the human narrowly won the challenge, the latest partnership with Catalyst Brands and the narrow loss could signal the future of implementing humanoid robots into warehouses, something that Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) may have recently hinted at.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has argued that the Optimus Bot represents a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity for Tesla and could be the future of the company.
Time will tell if Optimus starts landing robots deals like Figure that could strengthen the argument.
Figure Attracts Big Backers
Figure has raised money in several funding rounds, attracting investments from the likes of Jeff Bezos, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), T-Mobile Ventures, LG Technology Ventures, Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), Qualcomm Ventures (NASDAQ:QCOM), and OpenAI.
A Series C funding round in 2025 saw the company valued at $39 billion, with the new financing going towards building humanoid robots at scale.
Photo: Poetra.RH / Shutterstock.com
Login to comment