How Alpha Partners helped Capital Factory unlock the power of pro rata

Alpha Partners has built a decade-long relationship with Capital Factory, a very active early-stage investor in Texas. Since 2009, Capital Factory has backed more than 1,000 companies as a pre-seed and seed investor. Like most incubators and first-check VC firms, Capital Factory’s involvement in its portfolio companies historically stopped at the seed stage.

For years, Alpha Partners Managing Partner Steve Brotman advocated for Capital Factory to take advantage of its pro rata rights and raise special purpose vehicles (SPVs) to fund investments in its top-performing companies’ Series A and Series B rounds. In 2024, Brotman found the perfect opportunity to convince them to do so.

A $30+ trillion market opportunity

Brotman had long been interested in humanoid robotics and had personally invested in Figure, a humanoid robotics company based out of San Jose, California. “Paid human labor accounts for just over half of global GDP,” explains Brotman, citing data from the International Labour Organization. “That makes it roughly a $58 trillion¹ market — even without taking unpaid labor into account — and therefore multiples of times bigger than B2B SaaS. Even if humanoid robotics were only to capture 0.1% of that market, it would have the potential to be a $58 billion opportunity.”

According to Brotman, humanoid robots have the potential to become one of the biggest product categories in human history. Further, Brotman believes each humanoid robot may drive $100,000 in annual value toward global GDP.

When Capital Factory heard about Brotman’s interest in humanoid robotics, the team suggested that he meet one of its portfolio companies, an AI-powered robotics business called Apptronik that had spun off from the University of Texas at Austin’s Human Centered Robotics Lab. After meeting with Apptronik CEO Jeff Cardenas, Brotman became convinced of the company’s potential to become a market leader. Not long after, he decided to exit his position in Figure and invest in Apptronik.

Recognizing the potential generational opportunity in Apptronik, Alpha Partners moved strategically to secure access. By partnering with Capital Factory, one of Apptronik’s earliest backers, to activate their pro-rata rights, Alpha secured a $5 million investment into a highly contested round. Just as important, Alpha’s conviction helped bridge the gap for larger institutional players, including B Capital, a fund manager with $9 billion assets under management, to join the financing. 

Validation through global partnerships and scaling

Following the investment, Apptronik accelerated through a series of milestones. Importantly, it solidified a financial and strategic partnership with the Google DeepMind robotics team. The partnership brought best-in-class artificial intelligence together with cutting-edge hardware and embodied intelligence, to advance humanoid robots that can be more helpful to people in dynamic environments. As a result, in early 2025, the company secured a $415 million Series A at a $1.4 billion valuation, co-led by B Capital and Capital Factory with significant participation from Google. 

This momentum continued in early 2026 with a $520 million Series A extension, propelling the company’s valuation north of $5 billion. Google deepened its commitment during this round, joining a top-tier investor syndicate that included B Capital, Mercedes-Benz, John Deere, and AT&T Ventures, among other financial and strategic investors.

Throughout these rounds, Alpha Partners leveraged its partnership with Capital Factory to secure continued access in Apptronik. By encouraging Capital Factory to claim their pro-rata rights, Alpha successfully channeled over $35 million across multiple SPVs into these rounds, sharing a portion of its fund economics with Capital Factory. 

A transformative outcome

While Alpha’s investments in Apptronik have given its investors access to a potentially transformational company they otherwise might not have reached, it has also been a game-changer for Capital Factory. Thanks to the SPVs it raised with Alpha’s encouragement, Capital Factory has facilitated over $200 million in investment into Apptronik and today holds a significant stake in the business. To put that in perspective, by doubling down on this one company, Capital Factory says that it has generated some of its most significant returns.

“Alpha made it easy for us to double down on Apptronik — one of our highest-conviction companies — without adding headcount or headaches,” says Capital Factory Founder and CEO, Joshua Baer. “They ran the SPVs, we kept our focus on the founders, and we ended up owning a lot more of a company we believe in.”

“In seed investing, the biggest returns usually come from doubling down on your ‘power-law’ winners,” says Brotman. “By exercising their pro rata rights with a third party, early-stage investors can pursue meaningful follow-on capital for their high-conviction, ‘power-law’ opportunities.”