Align Ventures
Align Ventures is an investment firm partnering with consumer brands and technologies that reshape our culture.
Portfolio companies (1)
Funding rounds (1)
Round size: $675M
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Figure AI's former safety engineer says its home robot can fracture a skull
Figure AI's former product-safety engineer Robert Gruendel has filed a federal whistleblower and wrongful-termination suit alleging the company's F.02 humanoid robot produces impact forces more than 20 times the ISO 15066 human pain threshold and has gouged steel, while the firm simultaneously pushed toward home deployment. Gruendel says his safety roadmap was gutted the same month Figure closed its $39 billion-valuation Series C, and Figure disputes the allegations and has counterclaimed. The case, now in discovery, is among the first to test humanoid robot safety claims in court and highlights the absence of any consumer-safety certification regime for home humanoids.
$39 Billion Valuation: The Tripled Bubble of Figure, the Global Embodied Intelligence Track Leader
The article scrutinizes Figure's $39 billion valuation—roughly triple its prior-year figure—as a 'three-bubble' phenomenon: inflated marketing claims about a BMW robot fleet (BMW confirmed only one robot did real work), a financing structure that relied on two small VC firms filling $1.2 billion quotas via special purpose vehicles, and unproven technology for household deployment that triggered a safety whistleblower lawsuit. It contrasts Figure's hype-driven narrative with Chinese competitors like Unitree, Galaxy General, and Agibot, who are showing more grounded engineering progress.
Nscale Backs Figure AI With $3.5 Billion, Takes Equity Stake in Humanoid Push
AI cloud provider Nscale announced a $3.5 billion GPU infrastructure commitment to humanoid robotics company Figure AI, taking an undisclosed equity stake in what marks the largest dedicated compute commitment to a humanoid robotics company. The deal, involving 100,000 NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs deployed at Nscale's Texas facility beginning late 2027, also includes Nscale becoming Figure's preferred compute provider as the two companies explore deeper integration, including potentially using Figure robots in Nscale's supply chain.