Figure, the robotics company that in January entered into a commercial agreement to bolster BMW’s manufacturing process with its humanoid robots, announced Thursday that it has raised $675 million in a new funding round, granting the company a $2.6 billion valuation. 

The company said it has received investments from Microsoft, OpenAI’s startup fund, Nvidia and Jeff Bezos, through Bezos Expeditions, in addition to several venture capital firms. 

The announcement of the investment from these many facets of the Big Tech sector comes alongside a new agreement between Figure and OpenAI to develop next-generation artificial intelligence models for use in its humanoid robots. 

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“The collaboration aims to help accelerate Figure’s commercial timeline by enhancing the capabilities of humanoid robots to process and reason from language,” Figure said in a statement. 

Figure added that the investment will ramp up the company’s timeline for the development of its humanoid robots, and will be used for AI training, manufacturing, enhancing deployment efforts and hiring more engineers. 

As part of its new collaborative partnerships, Figure said that it will use Microsoft Azure to power its AI infrastructure, training and storage. 

Microsoft, having poured $13 billion into OpenAI, is OpenAI’s largest investor. The tech giant recently inked a new deal with French AI startup Mistral, worth about $16 million. 

The European Commission is investigating both deals. 

Contact Ian with AI stories via email, ian.krietzberg@thearenagroup.net, or Signal 732-804-1223.

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