(Correct the employee number in paragraph 6 to 130 from 100)

By Krystal Hu

(Reuters) -FieldAI, which develops systems for robots to operate safely in industrial environments, has raised $314 million in a new funding round, quadrupling its valuation, sources with knowledge of the matter said.

The Irvine, California-based startup is now valued at $2 billion, up from $500 million in a round last year, they added.

FieldAI said it has raised $405 million over two funding rounds to scale its artificial intelligence platform but did not break out its latest financing. It added that backers include Khosla Ventures, Nvidia's ( NVDA ) NVentures, Bezos Expeditions, Canaan Partners and Intel Capital.

The startup, founded in 2023, has gained attention as it focuses on software that can be installed on a wide range of hardware, allowing it and its clients to use the most cost-effective robots which accelerates deployment. That contrasts with vertically integrated companies that build their hardware and software, such as Figure AI. 

FieldAI's current focus is on enabling robots to perform monitoring and surveying tasks in "dirty, dull, dangerous" environments, with a long-term goal of expanding into more complex, action-based capabilities.

CEO Ali Agha, a former robotics technologist at NASA, said in an interview that the financing will help the company expand its team. It had about 30 people at the end of 2024 and grew to 130 this year, and plans to double headcount by the end of 2025 to support multi-million-dollar contracts in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

He added that FieldAI's technology differentiates itself from other AI models because it integrates physics principles to manage risk in a changing environment, allowing robots to operate more safely without needing pre-mapped environments.

"In robotics, there are consequences to actions, so managing that risk is the fundamental gap today," Agha said.

Kanu Gulati, a partner at Khosla Ventures, said FieldAI was attractive because one of the robotics industry's main bottlenecks to further development was the lack of real world data.

"The bigger story for me is getting more robots deployed that are collecting more data, and then they can be in the pole position to win," she said.

Global funding in robotics surged to $18.6 billion in 2024, a 116% increase from the previous year, according to a report by F-Prime Capital.