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By Ben Scent, Arno Schuetze, and Mark Bergen
March 24, 2026 at 6:56 PM UTC
Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, a billionaire member of the Qatari royal family, and Amazon.com Inc. have joined the latest funding round for German startup Neura Robotics.
HBJ, as the former Qatari premier is known, recently became a shareholder in Neura Robotics through a unit of his holding company Prime Capital SA, according to corporate registry filings.
Qualcomm Ventures, stablecoin issuer Tether and German industrial group Robert Bosch GmbH also invested in the company as part of the same March capital hike, the filings show.
Bloomberg News reported previously that Neura Robotics was in talks to raise about €1 billion ($1.2 billion) in a funding round that could value the Metzingen-based company at about €4 billion, with the possibility that the size of the deal could still increase. Auto supplier Schaeffler AG and Roland Berger Industries GmbH also participated in the fundraising, according to the latest registry filings.
The funding will help Neura Robotics as it seeks to develop an artificial intelligence-powered humanoid robot. The company is competing against several well-capitalized firms making bipedal robots designed to lift heavy objects and automate repetitive tasks, powered by rapid advances in AI software.
Representatives for Neura Robotics, Amazon, Schaeffler and Bosch declined to comment. Spokespeople for Qualcomm Ventures and Tether didn’t immediately respond to queries. Calls to Roland Berger’s office weren’t answered outside regular business hours, while contact details for Prime Capital couldn’t immediately be located.
Qatar’s Al Thani, who previously ran the gas-rich emirate’s sovereign wealth fund, is one of the most high-profile Middle Eastern investors. During his tenure at the Qatar Investment Authority, it built stakes in prestigious European companies including commodities trader Glencore Plc, British lender Barclays Plc and luxury department store Harrods. The fund also became one of Credit Suisse’s top shareholders.
The sheikh later became one of Deutsche Bank AG’s largest investors, and has family offices which deploy capital globally into public equities, real estate and private assets. A friend of King Charles III, Al Thani was once dubbed the “man who bought London” by the British media after overseeing a dramatic expansion of Qatari interests in the UK capital since the turn of the millennium. Prime Capital, one of the billionaire’s Luxembourg-based investment vehicles, is overseen by his 41-year-old son, Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani.
Investors are looking to humanoid robots as the next potential wave of artificial intelligence, funding companies including Figure AI, Dexterity and Apptronik — which raised $520 million in February. The market for AI-powered robots and autonomous machines has the potential to balloon into a trillion-dollar opportunity by 2035, a team of Barclays analysts wrote last month in a report titled “The Decade of the Robot.”
Many companies in China are also rushing to build AI-powered robots. Mobile phone maker Honor Device Co. recently unveiled its first humanoid at the MWC Barcelona tech conference, performing remote-controlled gestures and poses. Hangzhou startup Unitree showcased robots that did parkour moves and mimicked Jackie Chan’s iconic Drunken Master style at China’s annual Spring Festival gala last month.
Neura Robotics’ website shows pictures of its humanoid robots working on a car assembly line and sorting laundry. The startup sells products including a transport robot for factories and a machine with robotic arms marketed as a home device.
Chief Executive Officer David Reger said last year that Neura Robotics had almost $1 billion in orders, with customers that included Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. and Omron Corp.
The startup raised a €120 million funding round in January 2025 led by Exor NV’s Lingotto Investment Management. Volvo Cars Tech Fund and other investors also participated.
