How German billionaire skipped college and learned robotics on YouTube to build $7B compa…

David Reger skipped university and taught himself robotics through YouTube videos before building Neura Robotics into one of Europe's leading developers of artificial intelligence-powered robots.

Neura Robotics is hardly a household name, even in Metzingen, a German town of 22,000 people better known as the home of fashion brand Hugo Boss, where the robotics company is headquartered. Yet the startup has attracted investment from some of the world's biggest technology companies, including Nvidia and Amazon, while its founder, David Reger, has met with European leaders as he pursues ambitions to transform the continent's manufacturing industry.

Founded in 2019, Neura is now valued at approximately $7 billion, making it one of Europe's most valuable robotics startups. Reger, 38, owns about 20% of the business, giving him an estimated fortune of nearly $1.5 billion.

When he entered the industry 15 years ago, Reger knew almost nothing about robotics. Today, he is developing humanoid robots designed to work alongside people and building training facilities where machines learn practical skills, from handling car parts to stacking boxes.

"I want Neura to become the largest taxpayer in Europe one day," he told Forbes in an interview this month.

From factory apprentice to self-taught engineer

Reger grew up near Rottweil in southwestern Germany as the eldest of 11 children. His father worked for an automotive supplier, while his mother was a homemaker. As a boy, he spent Saturdays cleaning machinery at the factory where his father worked. Instead of attending university, he completed a three-and-a-half-year apprenticeship as a mold maker, learning to manufacture tools used to produce industrial components.

At 21, he moved to San Francisco, U.S., in 2009, hoping to experience life abroad. Rather than pursuing a technology career in Silicon Valley, he worked with a Christian organization helping homeless people. After about 18 months, he returned to Germany with a greater appreciation for the country's social welfare system, which he later came to believe could benefit from advances in automation. His entry into robotics came almost by accident.

In 2011, Swiss machinery manufacturer MABI hired him and offered him a choice between working on robotics or 3D printing. He chose robotics, reasoning that robots might eventually be capable of handling 3D printing themselves. There was one problem: he had never worked with a robot.

"I had no clue about robots," he said. "I pretended I had a clue."

Determined to catch up, he spent his evenings teaching himself robotics through YouTube videos. Within a year, he said, his small team was demonstrating a large industrial robotic arm at Automatica, a major automation exhibition in Munich.

He remained at MABI for seven years, developing his expertise and becoming convinced that industrial robots could do much more than repeat the same movements on factory production lines.

Building a $7 billion robotics company

In 2018, Reger presented an idea to MABI's board: robots that could learn new tasks and share their knowledge with other machines, reducing the need to program each one separately. The executives liked his proposal but believed the market was still five or six years away from being ready.

Reger decided not to wait.

In 2019, he partnered with Chinese robotics manufacturer Han's Robot, backed by Shenzhen-based Han's Laser Technology, to establish a robotics business in Germany. The Chinese partner initially owned 70% of the venture, which combined Chinese robotic hardware with the German team's expertise in software, sensors and engineering.

Reger recruited around a dozen engineers and researchers, including former colleagues, to develop robots capable of working alongside people. The business eventually became Neura Robotics. Its early products included industrial robotic arms and mobile machines designed to transport materials around factories.

In June 2023, European investors bought out the Chinese partner's stake for $11 million. A month later, Neura announced another $55 million fundraising round. The timing proved favorable. The emergence of ChatGPT had triggered a surge of interest in artificial intelligence, with investors increasingly looking for ways to bring the technology into the physical world. Neura subsequently attracted major technology companies and industrial manufacturers.

In June this year, it secured financing worth up to $1.4 billion, led by cryptocurrency company Tether, with backing from Nvidia, Amazon and other investors. The deal valued Neura at approximately $7 billion, propelling Reger into the ranks of the world's billionaires.

However, some of the funding remains dependent on the company meeting performance milestones, and its ambitions have yet to translate fully into commercial success. Most of Neura's revenue still comes from conventional industrial robots rather than humanoid machines. The company has not disclosed its latest revenue figures, although it says its order book exceeds $1.1 billion.

On Oct. 22, Neura and the Technical University of Munich opened a €17 million ($19 million) robotics training center near Munich Airport, where around 100 humanoid and service robots are learning to perform everyday and industrial tasks.

During a visit to the facility by The New York Times' reporters this month, robots were seen picking up car parts, stacking boxes and practicing how to grip objects without breaking them. Human trainers guide the machines, while an AI system allows skills learned by one robot to be shared with others.

The facility is part of Neura's plan to establish an international network of training centers, including sites in China and the U.S. Reger believes such facilities could help robots learn to work in factories, warehouses, hospitals and other workplaces, particularly as Europe faces labor shortages caused by its aging population.

"The biggest bottleneck in Physical AI is no longer intelligence, it's experience," he said in a July 22 company announcement about a separate training facility being developed with RWTH Aachen University. "Robots learn by interacting with the real world and that's exactly why we are building NEURA Gyms."

The company still faces significant challenges.

Humanoid robots remain expensive, require extensive training and have yet to demonstrate that they can reliably perform a wide range of jobs at commercially viable costs. Chinese manufacturers also dominate the global humanoid robot market, giving them a considerable advantage in production and the collection of training data. Zornitsa Todorova, a researcher at Barclays, told The New York Times that China was well positioned to lead the emerging industry. "The next 10 years will be the decade of the robot — and at the moment, it looks like that decade might belong to China," she said.

Reger nevertheless believes Europe has an opportunity to build a major industry around intelligent machines, drawing on its manufacturing expertise and engineering talent.

"Europe has the engineering talent, industrial knowledge, manufacturing base and thousands of companies that understand the physical world," he said. "If we combine that with AI and move fast enough, I believe we can create an industry that becomes bigger than automotive."