1X Raises $100 Million to Bring Android to Consumer Market 

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics company 1X has raised $100 million in Series B funding. 

The company will use the new funding to bring to market its second-generation android called NEO, which is a bipedal humanoid designed to perform a variety of everyday tasks in consumers’ homes, 1X said in a Thursday (Jan. 11) press release. 

“Our next milestone will be scaling our data collection strategy for Embodied AI and offering NEO to consumers,” Bernt Oivind Bornich, CEO of 1X said in the release. 

The Series B round follows a March 2023 Series A round that was led by OpenAI and Tiger Global, according to the release. 

With the latest round, which included participation from EQT Ventures, 1X has raised $125 million in less than 12 months, the release said. 

“The impact of androids joining our human workforce, on our terms, will be transformative (to say the least),” Ted Persson, partner at EQT Ventures, said in the release. “We’re convinced 1X with their NEO androids will play a crucial role in the pioneering steps towards the first forays of our technological and human future.” 

1X’s second-generation android will join its existing model called EVE, which rolls on two wheels and is used in factories and other businesses to open doors, take elevators and operate keypads, Bloomberg reported Thursday. 

In addition to cleaning and organizing in homes, the new NEO can be used to operate machinery in industrial settings, according to the report. 

With the new funding, 1X will hire new talent and ramp up its manufacturing capabilities, aiming to produce hundreds of androids per month, the report said. 

In an earlier development in this space, AI company Figure raised $70 million in May to advance its goal of building and deploying commercialized humanoid robots. 

Figure said at the time that its robots are designed to address labor shortages and do jobs that are considered unsafe, including often dangerous tasks in warehouses. 

When used in warehouse applications, humanoid robots can speed up logistics operations beyond the already-embedded disembodied arms, automated storage, moving trays and other machines currently being used to modernize back-end operations.