- SoftBank is in talks to purchase a majority stake in OpenAI-backed humanoid maker 1X Applied sciences at a $6 billion valuation, based on The Data.
- The deal would give SoftBank a foothold in humanoids to go along with its $5.4 billion ABB acquisition and Gravis Robotics funding, rounding out a full-stack robotics technique spanning industrial arms, building automation, and now house androids.
- 6 billion appears like a markdown towards the $10 billion valuation 1X was chasing lower than a yr in the past, and OpenAI itself reportedly thought-about shopping for the corporate outright earlier than SoftBank got here in.
SoftBank is in talks to purchase a majority stake in OpenAI-backed humanoid robotics startup 1X Technologies at a valuation of about $6 billion, The Information reported, citing individuals with information of the deal.
Tech Funding Information has tracked SoftBank’s robotics buildout and 1X’s rise because the firm’s earliest OpenAI-backed spherical.
The potential deal would deepen SoftBank’s push into robotics, constructing on its $5.4 billion acquisition of ABB’s industrial robotics enterprise and its rising portfolio of AI and automation belongings.
For 1X, it will convey a serious strategic investor to an organization that has moved from a small Norwegian robotics startup to probably the most carefully watched humanoid gamers on the earth, with OpenAI amongst its earliest backers.
From Norwegian actuator lab to humanoid contender
Based in 2014 in Moss, Norway, by roboticist Bernt Øivind Børnich, 1X initially operated as Halodi Robotics, creating secure actuators and full-body management programs for industrial and healthcare robotics.
The corporate rebranded to 1X Applied sciences in 2023 and shifted its focus towards androids designed for human environments, a pivot Børnich framed on the time as constructing machines that “work amongst individuals, one after the other,” moderately than robots that must decelerate to be purposeful.
The corporate first attracted main consideration when the OpenAI Startup Fund led a $23.5 million Series A2 in March 2023, alongside Tiger International and a bunch of Norwegian buyers together with Sandwater, Alliance Ventures, and Skagerak Capital.
1X has since developed EVE, a wheeled android for business environments, and NEO, its bipedal humanoid geared toward home use. The corporate has additionally expanded its manufacturing footprint, opening a 58,000-square-foot California factory with capacity for 10,000 NEO units in its first yr and a goal of 100,000 items by the top of 2027.
That trajectory helps clarify how an organization that was as soon as a comparatively early-stage robotics guess might now command a multibillion-dollar valuation.
SoftBank is constructing past robotic arms
The reported 1X talks match neatly into SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son’s broader physical-AI technique. In October 2025, SoftBank agreed to acquire ABB’s industrial robotics division for approximately $5.4 billion, giving it a serious place in industrial robotic arms and automation.
SoftBank has since acquired UK AI-chip firm Graphcore and continued placing capital behind robotics and AI infrastructure.
SoftBank has additionally been energetic elsewhere in robotics this yr. TFN reported in July that the group was exploring a possible acquisition of Gravis Robotics, the ETH Zurich spinout creating autonomous excavators, at a valuation north of $500 million — talks that adopted SoftBank’s exit from Boston Dynamics, offered to Hyundai for an estimated $325 million. These talks finally didn’t end in an acquisition; as a substitute, SoftBank invested $200 million in Gravis at a $1 billion valuation as a part of a Sequence A spherical in August.
Industrial robots, autonomous machines, humanoids, and the AI infrastructure that trains them are more and more funded by the identical handful of buyers, below the identical thesis: bodily AI, not simply software program, is the place the subsequent decade of returns will come from
OpenAI connection provides one other layer
OpenAI has reportedly thought-about shopping for it outright. OpenAI and 1X mentioned the potential of the ChatGPT maker buying 1X final yr, based on The Data, although these talks didn’t result in a deal.
TFN has additionally tracked z OpenAI’s broader robotics portfolio, together with Determine AI, which raised greater than $1 billion in a Sequence C at a $39 billion valuation in September 2025, led by Parkway Enterprise Capital with participation from Brookfield Asset Administration, Nvidia, and Intel Capital — up from a $675 million Sequence B in early 2024, when OpenAI, Nvidia, and Microsoft first backed the corporate.
That historical past makes 1X an uncommon strategic asset. If the deal closes, SoftBank would achieve management of a humanoid firm that already has a working relationship with one of many world’s main AI mannequin firms, and one which OpenAI itself as soon as thought-about folding into its personal operations.
The larger robotics imaginative and prescient
Humanoid robotics stays a capital-intensive and technically unsure market, although. The know-how nonetheless has to maneuver past demonstrations into dependable, scalable business deployment, and 1X’s personal fundraising shortfall is a reminder that investor urge for food has limits.
However SoftBank is more and more positioning itself throughout the complete robotics stack moderately than betting on any single machine.
Fairly than signalling a retreat from robotics, the Boston Dynamics exit appears in hindsight like a part of a shift towards AI-native robotics companies and infrastructure — industrial arms via ABB, autonomous building gear via Gravis, and now, doubtlessly, humanoids via 1X.
For 1X, a $6 billion price ticket would nonetheless be a leap from the $23.5 million OpenAI-led spherical that first put the Norwegian-founded firm on the worldwide robotics map. Whether or not SoftBank’s stability sheet can flip that early enthusiasm right into a functioning family product at scale is the query the subsequent few years will reply.
