Billionaire Qatar Sheikh, Amazon Back Robotics Startup Neura - Bloomberg.com
Amazon is widening its bet on humanoid robotics, and this time it is sharing the table with a Qatari royal.
Neura Robotics, a German startup building AI-powered humanoid robots, announced Tuesday that Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani — a billionaire member of the Qatari royal family who has previously invested in Barclays and Harrods — and Amazon have jointly joined Neura's latest funding round. Terms were not disclosed. The investment adds Gulf sovereign capital to a humanoid robotics company already backed by stablecoin giant Tether and chipmaker Qualcomm, with Bosch as a strategic technology partner.
Neura Robotics is positioning the funding toward developing robots capable of heavy lifting and automating repetitive industrial tasks. The company competes in a crowded field — Tesla's Optimus, Figure AI, 1X, Apptronik, and Boston Dynamics are all building humanoid platforms — but has differentiated itself through a rapidly expanding roster of strategic investors rather than a single anchor backer.
Amazon's involvement is the sharper signal. The company acquired Fauna Robotics and Rivr Robotics in separate transactions earlier this month, giving it direct ownership of a consumer-facing humanoid platform and a last-mile delivery robot. The Neura investment is different: it is a passive financial stake in a company building for industrial applications, not a product acquisition. That suggests Amazon is hedging across multiple humanoid segments — consumer, logistics, and industrial — without committing to manufacturing any of them itself.
The Gulf capital layer adds geopolitical weight. Sheikh Hamad's investment vehicle, Prime Capital SA, has a track record of stakes in European financial and luxury assets. His entry into humanoid robotics via Neura suggests sovereign and sovereign-adjacent capital is treating the space as a strategic asset class, not a venture flier.
Barclays analysts have projected the AI-powered robotics market could reach $1 trillion by 2035. The investor coalition Amazon and Sheikh Hamad are forming around Neura — alongside Tether and Qualcomm — suggests that forecast is driving capital commitment before the technology is proven at scale.
Neura Robotics has previously disclosed an order book including Kawasaki and Omron. The company has raised across multiple rounds, with prior reporting putting the Tether-led round at approximately €1 billion at a €4 billion post-money valuation.