Figure's Helix >>> Tesla Optimus, 1X, and Unitree, but will they ever IPO?

I'm sure some of you have seen a video showing 2 of Figure's humanoid robots putting away a bag of groceries recently.

Yes, the speed they were putting the groceries away was nothing impressive. But what caught my interest the most was the infrastructure underneath that was driving the behavior. Figure's robots are running on a Vision-Language-Action model (VLA) named Helix. It's the allegedly the first of its kind and allows for the planning and solving of complex tasks WITHOUT pre-programming or demonstrations. Even more impressive, the two robots were actually communicating/collaborating with one another to plan out and complete a longer-term task from start to finish. The model runs on a single layer neural network; and you can a have a fleet of these to learn and improve behaviors autonomously (and though no stats were provided it's said that it can run on low-cost GPUs).

They've been testing these on assembly lines at BMW and are pushing UP in-home alpha tests nearly 2 years to later this year. To me, the infrastructure underlying your "AI-driven Robot" is critical; it's what decides who wins and loses and how scalable a product of this kind actually is. Other robotics companies in this space (minus Boston Dynamics) feel SUPER gimmicky; they made a robot with a cool skin, but rarely talk about what drives decision making. It's either pre-programmed or they haven't gotten that far, which to me sets apart a pretty toy and viable and scalable product. I think what powers decision making should be the FIRST and PRIMARY thing you should talk about for this type of product not an after-thought.

With that being said I get the sense that Figure differentiates itself from competitors in that they really focused on the bones of the product. It's scalable and can be adapted more quickly to different applications because its infrastructure pays mind to that. It's a feature that I think is valuable, and larger institutions like Microsoft, OpenAI, NVIDIA, and individuals with deep pockets like Jeff Bezos have already poured hundreds of millions of dollars into this company's success.

So with all that context above here were a few questions that I had:

The economy is all over the place, any company that wanted to IPO this year is having second thoughts. Also given the above, Figure already has backing from the companies that would be likely candidates to acquire them if they choose to go that route, or if they choose not to these are private investors with deep pockets that would keep them afloat as they get further along in development.

So is this a company you believe would even need to IPO? Does it stay private, or get acquired by a big player in the space? I have my own opinions on why Figure would be a leader in the space by a long shot when it comes to making a product you can scale for a variety of different situations, but if you feel differently, what brings you to your conclusion? And lastly, if this were to IPO in the next few years, how would even go about assigning a value to this? Some estimates from other companies seem blown WAY out of proportion (Musk said something like $25 Trillion by 2040 for humanoid robots which feels ridiculously out of touch), so what do you think is a reasonable way to evaluate what a company like this would actually be worth?