German robotics manufacturer Agile Robots SE has closed a new $500 million funding round led by SoftBank, with participation from NVIDIA, Hitachi, and others. The company is now valued at $8.5 billion, bringing its total cumulative funding to approximately $2 billion. Founded in 2018 by researchers from the German Aerospace Center, Agile Robots develops both software and hardware, including humanoid robots and mobile robots. The new funding will be used to expand into overseas markets and increase manufacturing capacity. The company recently opened a humanoid robot factory near Munich and expects to produce approximately 2,000 humanoid robots in 2026, with output potentially rising to two to three times that level in 2027. Its latest robot system is currently being tested at customer manufacturing sites, including Audi. Agile Robots has also launched small robots for universities and laboratories, allowing researchers to test underlying AI models and accumulate real-world training data to improve robot capabilities. CEO Chen Zhaopeng believes the key turning point—when humanoid robots surpass human work efficiency—is approaching fast, and that humanoid robots will soon outperform human labor on certain tasks. The industry still faces technical challenges, including battery life, weight distribution, and the quality of real-world training data. SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has positioned the robotics business as a core component of the group's AI strategy.