Tether Looks to Jump Into Robotics With Reported $1B Investment in German Startup Neura

Stablecoin giant Tether is in talks to lead a 1 billion euro ($1.16 billion) funding round for Neura Robotics, a German start-up that develops AI-powered humanoid robots.

The potential deal would value Neura between 8 billion and 10 billion Financial Times reported, citing sources familiar with the talks. If completed, the investment represents a sharp increase from Neura’s last round in January, when it raised 120 million euros.

Tether did not confirm the talks to the FT, but said it is “actively exploring numerous opportunities to continue investing in frontier technologies”.

Neura’s main product is a humanoid robot designed for industrial use, with plans to expand into home environments. The company has publicly aimed to produce 5 million robots by 2030 and positions its offer as a potential mainstream breakthrough, a so-called “iPhone moment” for robotics. It has already booked €1 billion in orders, according to its January statement.

Tether’s expanding investment portfolio includes companies in agriculture, brain technology and sports. The company did more than $10 billionn in profit in the first nine months of the year from investing reserves from its stablecoin operationswhich includes holding large amounts of US Treasuries.

The giant stablecoin also contains billions of dollars in gold, along with bitcoin reserves. The company has recently he raised his bet on the video sharing platform Rumble, the ad was previously seeking to raise funds to a Valuation of $500 billion.

Interest in humanoid robots has grown as companies like Nvidia, Tesla and SoftBank race to apply generative AI to physical machines.

Tesla aims to produce 1 million Optimus robots by 2030. Startups like 1X, Figure AI and The Bot Company are also competing for a piece of what Nvidia’s CEO recently described as a multitrillion-dollar opportunity.