Why ordinary investors struggle to buy into the robotics boom

Anyone hoping to bet on robots taking over factories, warehouses and homes runs into the awkward fact that shares of the start-ups at the centre of the frenzy cannot be bought on a stock exchange. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT What is available is a carmaker betting its future on robots, industrial groups for which robots are one business among many and a new breed of listed funds charging handsomely for access. Euronews breaks down the options ordinary investors currently have to gain exposure to robotics, and the risks each one carries. Buying Tesla for the robots Tesla is currently one prominent route. As Elon Musk said last year, about 80% of the company's value will come from Optimus, its humanoid robot, while its robotaxis add another robotics angle. Yet, buying Tesla today still mostly means buying a carmaker. Its automotive business generated $20.5 billion (€18.1bn) of its $28.2 billion (€24.9bn) revenue in the second quarter of this year, almost 75%, while Optimus has yet to record any sales. "By the end of next year, I think we'll be selling humanoid robots to the public," Musk declared at the World Economic Forum in Davos back in January. Tesla has since begun building the robot at its Fremont plant in California, but Musk has warned that "Optimus production will be extremely slow at first, as everything is new. This is not like making a car." "Many Tesla investors own the shares to access Elon Musk's entrepreneurial skills. The vehicle sales keep the lights on and help to fund the more adventurous ideas, including robotics," Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at UK investment platform AJ Bell, explained to Euronews. However, that ambition does not come cheap. "European car manufacturers typically trade on less than 10 times forward earnings. In contrast, Tesla trades on 165 times forward earnings. That suggests a lot of the 'blue sky' element is factored into the shares, and investors are having to pay up for it," Coatsworth said. Most robots are not humanoids Humanoids also draw attention out of proportion to their share of the market. About 7,000 were sold worldwide last year for industrial and professional use, against 603,000 industrial robots installed worldwide, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). The industrial leaders rarely offer a clean bet either. Robots made up 44% of sales at Japan's Fanuc in the year to March and only between 7% and 10% of revenue at Swiss-Swedish group ABB in the last two years. On top of that, rather than list its robotics arm separately as originally planned, ABB agreed to sell it to Japan's SoftBank for $5.4 billion (€4.7bn). Germany's KUKA left the stock market in 2022 after Chinese appliance maker Midea took full control. Siemens, meanwhile, makes the software and controllers that run automated factories, not the robots. A listed fund of private robot makers None of the options mentioned offers a direct stake in the start-ups themselves, and that is the gap RoboStrategy is trying to fill. The fund, which began trading on the Nasdaq in May under the ticker BOT, holds stakes in private robotics companies and has publicly traded shares, so anyone with a brokerage account can own a slice of its investments. Well-known robotics start-ups such as Figure AI, Dyna Robotics and Apptronik each made up close to a fifth of its net assets in June. The fund is run by Andrew Kang, co-founder of crypto investment firm Mechanism Capital, who wrote on X in May that when he first looked at robotics two years earlier, "most venture capitalists I consulted with recommended not to invest in the space." Sentiment has turned fast since then. Robotics start-ups had raised $18.8 billion (€16.6bn) this year by mid-June, more than in record-breaking 2025, according to data platform Crunchbase, which tracks information about private and public companies, including start-up funding rounds. Vehicles like RoboStrategy exist because companies now stay private far longer. The median US tech company that listed in 2025 was 12 years old, against only four back in 1999, according to University of Florida professor Jay Ritter, who is known as "Mr. IPO" given his more than 40 years of pioneering research into initial public offerings. In the US, stakes in private companies are largely reserved for wealthy "accredited" investors. Paul Atkins, chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, said in March that this kind of exposure "should not be reserved for those who satisfy a certain wealth threshold or are deemed to be sufficiently sophisticated." However, access does come at a price, even for these new funds. RoboStrategy's shares opened at $27.34 on Friday, about 2.4 times the fund's net asset value of $11.35 per share at the end of August. The fund's shares hit a peak of $59 back in May. "It's a scarcity premium which can happen with a hot investment area [...] investors might feel it is worth paying a premium to invest in RoboStrategy if it means getting early exposure to companies that could be tomorrow's market champions," Coatsworth explained to Euronews. That premium can shrink fast. For instance, buyers in early July paid almost four times the value of the underlying assets and have since lost about a quarter of their money, even though net asset value per share rose by 27% over roughly the same period. Investors also pay a 2.5% annual management fee, with total yearly expenses of almost 4%, and the fund's private stakes are valued on estimates rather than market prices. "An investment in RoboStrategy is speculative and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment," the fund warns on its website. There is a precedent for investors suffering heavy losses as a fund’s premium shrinks. Destiny Tech100, a fund holding stakes in private firms such as SpaceX and OpenAI, traded at a premium of around 2,000% to its asset value within two weeks of listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2024. Its shares closed at $99.79 on 8 April that year, but by 12 April they had fallen to $29 — a drop of about 71% in four days. "It's important for investors to know what they are getting for their money and to realise when they are paying more than the underlying value of assets," Coatsworth cautioned. Robotics ETFs Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) generally trade closer to their net asset value, though they mostly hold listed companies. For example, Roundhill's humanoid robotics ETF counted Tesla, Chinese robot maker UBTech and Hyundai among its biggest holdings at the end of June. "There are several robotics ETFs on the market that trade at net asset value, meaning that investors don't have to settle for the first thing they find," Coatsworth said. Even when a robot maker does list, it can be out of reach. For example, China's Unitree soared 460% on its debut in August on Shanghai's tech-focused STAR Market, where foreign investors generally need a special licence to buy newly listed shares. Until more of the sector's leaders go public, investors wanting a pure bet on robots will pay for it one way or another, through a carmaker, a conglomerate or a premium. Disclaimer: This information does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research on top to ensure it's right for your specific circumstances. Also remember, we are a journalistic website and aim to provide the best guides, tips and advice from experts. If you rely on the information on this page, then you do so entirely at your own risk.