Neura Robotics: Born in Shenzhen, betting on Germany

Neura Robotics: Born in Shenzhen, betting on Germany

Metzingen, a quiet small town near Stuttgart, could produce Germany's next champion. Because David Reger is building humanoid robots here. On June 10, his company Neura Robotics raised up to $1.4 billion, one of the largest robotics rounds ever.

• The funders read like a who's who of the tech world: Nvidia, Amazon, Qualcomm, Bosch, Schaeffler, and stablecoin giant Tether as lead investor.

The real twist: Neura's story began in China

In 2017, Reger built a robotics company in Shenzhen together with Chinese industrial group Han's Laser, Han's Robot. In 2019, he moved the business to Germany, in 2020 it became Neura Robotics. Production also initially ran in China.

Only in 2024 did Reger move it completely to Metzingen.

What's being built in Metzingen

Neura's flagship is the 4NE-1, a humanoid robot that should lend a hand in the household and in the factory. The company also builds the service robot MiPA and the cobot MAiRA, which recognizes its surroundings with 3D cameras.

Reger showed the first prototype of the 4NE-1 in 2024, at CES in January 2026 then a smaller version. Series production is to start at the end of 2026. By 2030, Reger wants to build millions of robots per year.

The expensive race

Neura is just one player in a race where enormous sums are flowing right now. In the US, investors are pouring billions into Tesla's Optimus and the startup Figure. In China, Unitree, AgiBot, and UBTech delivered over a thousand humanoids each in 2025 and are pushing prices down.

In 2026 alone, more than $18 billion flowed into humanoid companies, while the leading providers recently combined made only around $340 million in revenue.

So the money comes years before the robots.

And in the end, back to China

In November 2025, Neura opened its own location in Hangzhou, the country's first "NeuraGym," where robots practice real tasks and collect training data in the process. This was followed by a partnership with Alibaba Cloud. Reger brought the factories to Germany, but for data, partners, and speed, he goes back to China.

Even Germany's great hope can't get around the world's largest robotics market.

FROM THE TEAM

No country wins this race alone.

Germany has the engineering expertise and the industry, China has the speed, the supply chains, and the market. That's exactly the bridge we're working on at Asiabits.

Right now we're supporting a German hygiene company here on the ground in China to find robots and partners that don't exist in Europe like this.

Want to find local partners too or just get your own picture? Feel free to reach out to us!

OUR CONTENT PARTNER: LIMEN CHINA

China prioritizes its future industries

The 15th Five-Year Plan shows which technologies Beijing is now scaling, where China is betting long-term, and why Western companies should strategically understand this planning logic.

For German and European companies, it's about concrete questions of strategic positioning.

• In which fields is the next subsidized competitor emerging in China?

• Where is there still a near-term window of opportunity for cooperation, licensing, or market entry?

• Which technologies fall under dual-use and export control logic?

Limen China's new China Board Briefing analyzes how China defines, demarcates, and controls its future industries. (German)

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