Tether leads $1.4 billion funding round in German robotics company Neura

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 into physical AI on record.

The funding, announced Wednesday, was projected to value Neura between $9 billion and nearly $12 billion when it first became 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 responded immediately to a CoinDesk request for further information.

“AI is moving from the digital world into 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 orders already.

Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, is building its own technology right into Neura's systems. The robots will receive their own independent digital wallets, allowing them to be paid automatically the moment they finish a job. They will also be able to make electronic payments to other machines, cutting out human managers, paperwork and bank delays.

Under CEO Paolo Ardoino, the El Salvador-based company is spending in a range of industries outside of the immediate crypto sector. Its growing portfolio includes investments in agriculture, brain tech and sports. The company made over $10 billion in profit in the first nine months of 2025 by investing rese