Tether may lead $1.2 billion round in German Robotics startup: FT

Tether is mulling a $1.16 billion funding round in the German tech startup Neura Robotics as the issuer of the world's largest stablecoin continues to explore new investment opportunities, according to a report from Financial Times on Friday.

The company "was in discussions with Neura over a deal that was expected to value the start-up at between" $9.29 billion and $11.6 billion, FT reported, citing anonymous sources.

Issuing USDT, the largest U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin by supply, has been extremely profitable for Tether and the company has looked to diversify its investment portfolio. Having generated profits of over $10 billion during the first three quarters of this year, which followed a profitable 2024, Tether has made several investments in AI, data centers, energy infrastructure, and bitcoin mining.

"Neura is seeking new investment as it prepares to sell its humanoid robot, initially aimed at industrial customers with plans to expand into home robots," FT said. "It has previously said it was aiming to produce 5 million devices by 2030, with the ambition of creating an 'iPhone moment' for robotics."

In January, Neura raised nearly $140 million in a round that included investors such as BlueCrest, C4 Ventures, Lingotto, and Volvo Cars Tech Fund.

The German company will compete with Elon Musk's Tesla, which is planning to mass-produce robots.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has taken a particular interest in the field of decentralized AI and has invested in an internal skunkworks team working on open-source, peer-to-peer machine learning tech called Tether AI.