Tether Investments said it led a $1.4 billion funding round for Neura Robotics, a German startup developing AI-powered humanoid robots, in what it called one of the largest investments in physical AI ever.
The funding, announced Wednesday, was expected to value Neura between $9 billion and nearly $12 billion when it first went public last November. Other participants in the round included Qualcomm Technologies, Amazon and NVIDIA, Neura said in a post on its website.
Neither Tether nor Neura immediately responded to a CoinDesk request for additional information.
“AI is moving from the digital world to the physical world,” David Reger, founder and CEO of Neura Robotics, said in a statement. The company recently said it aims to produce 5 million robots by 2030, with about $1.2 billion in orders already.
Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, is building its own technology directly into Neura’s systems. The robots will receive their own independent digital wallets so they can be paid automatically the moment they complete a job. They will also be able to make electronic payments to other machines, eliminating human managers, paperwork and banking delays.
Under CEO Paolo Ardoino, the El Salvador-based company uses in a number of industries outside of the immediate crypto sector. Its growing portfolio includes investments in agriculture, brain technology and sports. The company earned over $10 billion in profit in the first nine months of 2025 by investing rese
