Who this is
David Reger is the founder and CEO of NEURA Robotics in Metzingen, Germany, founded in 2019. The company builds cognitive robots and humanoids such as the 4NE1, runs the Neuraverse, a platform on which robots share skills, and trains them in its own NEURA Gyms. In June 2026 NEURA announced a Series C of up to 1.4 billion US dollars with investors including Tether, Qualcomm, Amazon, NVIDIA, Bosch and Schaeffler. David left school with a Hauptschulabschluss, the most basic German school certificate, never went to university, taught himself robotics from YouTube videos and had already built a robotics company before NEURA. After his apprenticeship he spent two years from 2009 working with homeless people in San Francisco. His stated goal: to become Europe's biggest taxpayer.
Episodes
Numbers from the episode
FAQ
What does NEURA Robotics do?
NEURA Robotics from Metzingen builds cognitive robots: robot arms, mobile robots and humanoids such as the 4NE1. This includes the Neuraverse, a platform where trained skills are shared and licensed, and the agent Aura, which orchestrates those skills. The robots are trained in NEURA Gyms, where partners teach their use cases via teleoperation. The focus is on industry, because according to David around 65 percent of global GDP comes from physical labour. To the episode →
How much money has NEURA Robotics raised?
In June 2026 NEURA announced a Series C of up to 1.4 billion US dollars, with Tether, Qualcomm, Amazon, NVIDIA, imec.xpand, Bosch, Schaeffler, the European Investment Bank, Lingotto Horizon and InterAlpen Partners. In the episode David says Tether, as lead investor, contributed the largest amount, though he can't disclose the exact figure. The previous round came to exactly 120.5 million and was raised in three and a half weeks. To the episode →
Does David Reger have a university degree?
No. David has a basic school certificate and completed an apprenticeship, was nevertheless hired as an engineer and taught himself robotics from YouTube videos. By his own account, at one point he knew every robotics video on the platform. Before NEURA he had already built a robotics company. To the episode →
Why is Tether the lead investor in NEURA Robotics?
David sees a machine economy coming in which robots license and pay for skills within milliseconds, without humans in the loop, perhaps with a wallet per robot. For that he needs a partner that can process huge numbers of transactions simultaneously, securely and at stable prices. The stablecoin provider Tether can do that. He accepts that he has to explain the choice more often than he would with a pure financial investor. To the episode →
Quotes
„Und deshalb sage ich auch immer, dass ein reines Vision Language Action Modell, so wie es heute so propagiert wird, auch niemals die Lösung sein wird für reale Physical AI.““That's why I always say that a pure vision-language-action model, the way it's being promoted today, will never be the solution for real Physical AI.”
„… wir sind jetzt in drei Monaten von … 70 Stunden auf 14 Stunden gekommen. Das ist das neue Benchmark von uns.““In three months we went from 70 hours to 14 hours. That's our new benchmark.”
„Ich gehe hin und verkaufe sie an meine Wettbewerber an andere Robotics-Firmen.““I go and sell them to my competitors, to other robotics companies.”
„Dementsprechend habe ich gesagt, ich will der größte Steuerzahler Deutschlands werden.““So I said: I want to become Germany's biggest taxpayer.”
„Also es war ein Erlebnis von wirklich oversubscribed zu, ich glaube, eine Woche vorm Closing. Das ganze Ding runtergecrasht auf vielleicht 40.““It was an experience of going from truly oversubscribed to, I think a week before closing, the whole thing crashing down to maybe 40.”