NEURA Robotics, a Metzingen-based cognitive robotics startup, today announced that it is acquiring 100% of the shares in Adlatus Robotics, an Ulm-based maker of autonomous cleaning robots.
The deal was carried out through NEURA Mobile Robots GmbH, the group’s logistics and automated-vehicle arm, and folds Adlatus’s installed base of cleaning and sweeping robots into NEURA’s broader “Neuraverse” platform.
David Reger, founder and CEO of NEURA Robotics, said, “We’re not buying ADLATUS just to add another cleaning robot to our portfolio. We want to give machines like this a new brain. Cleaning is a massive global labour market and, at the same time, a perfect example of what Physical AI can transform.
“When a robot doesn’t just navigate its environment but understands what it sees, senses, and needs to do, an entirely new generation of machines emerges. That’s exactly what we’re building the Neuraverse for.”
The acquisition comes just weeks after NEURA Mobile Robots agreed to acquire the ACTIVE Shuttle automated guided vehicle business from Bosch Rexroth. That transaction brought Bosch Rexroth’s ACTIVE Fleet Manager and ROKIT navigation software into the NEURA Group, with plans to offer these technologies as tools through the Neuraverse.
Founded in 2019, NEURA Robotics builds cognitive robots — including the humanoid 4NE1 and the MAiRA and LARA robotic arms — alongside the software and AI infrastructure that helps these cognitive robots to learn and share skills across the Neuraverse.
The company is building a new category of AI infrastructure in which cognitive robots continuously learn, collaborate, and operate across real-world environments through a shared intelligence ecosystem called the Neuraverse.
Unlike traditional robotics companies focused on isolated machines or narrow industrial automation, the company states that it combines robotics, AI, sensors, edge compute and large-scale learning infrastructure into one unified platform architecture designed for global deployment.
The acquisition spree follows a record capital raise. In June, NEURA raised a Series C financing of up to €1.2 billion ($1.4 billion), which it described as the largest round ever raised by a full-stack robotics company. The funding was backed by Tether, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Amazon, NVIDIA, imec.xpand, Bosch, Schaeffler, European Investment Bank, Lingotto Horizon, InterAlpen Partners and others.
The company said its existing order book and deployment pipeline already exceeded €864.8 million ($1 billion), and that the fresh capital is earmarked for scaling manufacturing toward several million robots in production by 2030 and expanding its network of “NEURA Gyms”, real-world training environments for cognitive robots.
Headquartered in Hamburg, NEURA Mobile Robots develops and delivers mobile transport robotics for production and warehouse logistics at international companies under its ek robotics brand.
Headquartered in Ulm, Germany, Adlatus has more than 20 years of experience building autonomous cleaning robots for industry, logistics, healthcare, and commercial and public spaces, with hundreds of systems already deployed in the field. It also builds its own navigation software and has deep knowledge of real-world cleaning operations.
Neura says it plans to equip the Adlatus fleet with additional sensor and AI capabilities and gradually connect the machines to the Neuraverse, so that a cleaning robot eventually recognises different surfaces and types of dirt, interprets its surroundings, chooses appropriate cleaning strategies, and learns from deployments rather than simply following a fixed route.
The German robotics company says the move doesn’t close the platform to other manufacturers. The company wants the Neuraverse to function as open infrastructure that other makers of cleaning and mobile robots can eventually plug their own machines into.
“Physical AI will only truly scale if it becomes an ecosystem,” Reger said.
Source: EU-Startups
