Feb 13 (Reuters) - Apptronik said on Thursday it has

raised $350 million in a funding round led by B Capital and

Capital Factory, with participation from Alphabet's Google

, to scale production of AI-powered humanoid robots.

The Austin, Texas-based company is developing Apollo, a

human-like or humanoid robots whose tasks will include working

in warehouses and manufacturing plants by moving packages and

other supply chain-oriented tasks.

Apptronik joins the ranks of rivals like Tesla

and Nvidia ( NVDA )-backed Figure AI in the race to develop

human-like robots as advancements in artificial intelligence

lead to significant breakthroughs in robotics and automation.

In October last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that "a lot

of progress" has been made with its humanoid robot "Optimus"

that could perform many daily tasks.

"This represents an inflection point for the industry. The

way I think about robotics and AI is it's very similar to large

language models in 2023. So I think 2025 is where you're going

to see a lot of activity for robotics," CEO and co-founder of

Apptronik, Jeff Cardenas said in an interview with Reuters.

The company, which said it plans "expanded deployment" of

Apollo this year, will use the investment to expand the robot's

capabilities to other industries including elder care and

healthcare.

Apptronik has a partnership with Google DeepMind robotics

team and said it has commercial agreements with Mercedes-Benz

and GXO Logistics for its humanoid robots.