Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, is in discussions to lead a €1 billion ($1.16 billion) funding round for Neura Robotics, a fast-growing German start-up building AI-enabled humanoid machines, according to a report in the Financial Times. The investment could value Neura between €8 billion and €10 billion—a dramatic jump from its last funding round in January, when it raised €120 million.
While Tether declined to confirm the negotiations, the company told the FT it is “actively exploring numerous opportunities to continue investing in frontier tech,” reflecting its increasingly aggressive push beyond the crypto sector.
Neura’s flagship product is a humanoid robot designed for industrial settings, with plans to expand into homes as capabilities improve. The company has described its ambition as bringing about an “iPhone moment” for robotics and has set a target of producing 5 million robots by 2030. In January, Neura said it had already secured €1 billion in customer orders.
For Tether, the potential investment marks another step in a diversification strategy that has seen the company take stakes in agriculture, neuroscience, and sports, and deepen its exposure to platforms like Rumble. Tether generated more than $10 billion in profit during the first nine months of the year, thanks largely to income from U.S. Treasuries and other assets backing its stablecoin reserves. It also holds billions of dollars’ worth of gold and maintains sizable bitcoin reserves.
The talks come amid an international surge of interest in humanoid robotics. Major players such as Nvidia, Tesla, and SoftBank are racing to fuse generative AI with physical machines, betting that the sector could become a multitrillion-dollar market. Tesla has outlined plans to produce 1 million units of its Optimus robot by 2030, while start-ups including 1X, Figure AI, and The Bot Company vie for commercial traction.
If finalized, the Tether-Neura deal would represent one of the largest single investments yet in the emerging humanoid robotics space, signaling both rising confidence and intensifying competition as AI systems continue to move off screens and into the physical world.