London's Humanoid raises $152M Series A, hits unicorn status with Bosch manufacturing deal

London robotics startup Humanoid raises $152M Series A, with Bosch set to manufacture its wheeled robots at scale

London's Humanoid raised $152M led by Prime Movers Lab at a billion-dollar-plus valuation, with Bosch signed on to build its wheeled robots at scale. London-based robotics startup Humanoid has raised $152 million in a Series A round led by Prime Movers Lab, the venture firm behind Figure AI's $39 billion valuation, pushing Humanoid's own valuation above $1 billion. Bosch, Schaeffler, Aglaé Ventures, the investment arm of LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault, and Taiwan's Fubon Financial also participated. The round brings total funding to $270 million for a company that is barely two years old and has not yet shipped a commercial unit. The most consequential detail may not be the cheque but the manufacturing deal attached to it. Robert Bosch Robotics, a subsidiary of the German industrial group, will act as Humanoid's contract manufacturer, providing hardware design, production capacity, and supply chain expertise. That arrangement gives a startup with roughly 200 engineers access to one of the largest manufacturing networks in Europe, a kind of partnership that typically takes years of commercial traction to secure. Humanoid was founded in London in May 2024 by Artem Sokolov, who sold his family's manufacturing and retail business, which Forbes described as a jewellery empire he had scaled to $1 billion in revenue, and reportedly invested $30 million of his own capital at launch. The company builds both wheeled and bipedal humanoid robots on its HMND 01 platform, which runs a proprietary AI system called KinetIQ. Its wheeled model completed an eight-hour autonomous shift at a Siemens factory in Erlangen earlier this year, handling 60 tote moves per hour with a pick-and-place success rate above 90 percent. The company claims 34,000 robot pre-orders worth nearly two and a half billion dollars, a figure that has not been independently verified and that dwarfs the revenue of every humanoid robotics company currently shipping hardware. Humanoid says it built its wheeled prototype in seven months and its bipedal version in five, timelines it attributes to simulation-first development on Nvidia's physical AI stack but that are also self-reported. A beta version is planned for the fourth quarter of 2026. The startup's claim to be Europe's first pure-play humanoid robotics unicorn is contested. Germany's Neura Robotics closed a round of more than $1 billion in June 2026 at a reported valuation near $7 billion, while Barcelona's THEKER raised $85 million in a Series A the same month with backing from LVMH. Globally, Humanoid sits well behind Figure AI and Austin-based Apptronik, which raised $520 million in February at a valuation near $5 billion. Goldman Sachs projects the global humanoid robot market will reach roughly $38 billion by 2035, a forecast that several startups in the sector have already exceeded in private-market valuation alone. The gap between what investors are pricing and what any company in the space has actually delivered in revenue remains one of the widest in venture capital. Whether Humanoid's hardware, its Bosch manufacturing deal, and its claimed pre-order pipeline can close that gap is the question this round is designed to answer.

UK-based Humanoid secures $152m Series A funding at valuation of $1.35bn

The financing is the largest-ever Series A round for a humanoid-first robotics company in Europe, the company said. UK-based AI and robotics company Humanoid has secured a $152m Series A financing round at a post-money valuation of $1.35bn. The funding was led by Prime Movers Lab, a venture capital firm focused on investments in breakthrough scientific start-ups, with participation from Schaeffler, Bosch, Fubon Financial Holding Venture Capital and Aglaé Ventures - the investment firm of LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault. The financing represents the largest-ever Series A for a humanoid-first robotics company in Europe, according to Humanoid, and brings its total funding to date to $270m. "In just two years, we've gone from an idea to becoming Europe's first pure-play humanoid robotics unicorn, partnered with some of the world's leading industrial companies and built one of the strongest pipelines in the industry," said CEO and founder Artem Sokolov. "This funding gives us the resources to move even faster and to turn humanoid robots from breakthrough technology into everyday industrial tools." The 2024-founded company builds humanoid robots for industrial use in ways that are "commercially viable, scalable and safe", it said. It employs more than 250 people between London, Boston, Vancouver and San Diego. "Humanoid robotics will be one of the defining technologies of the next decade, reshaping how commercial and industrial work gets done. We expect the field to consolidate around a handful of category leaders across the US, Europe and China," said Zia Huque, general partner at Prime Movers Lab. Humanoid said the new capital would be used to fund its next phase of growth, accelerate commercial deployments and business expansion, and further develop its wheeled robots and related proprietary AI platform, 'KinetIQ'. According to the company, it has ongoing partnerships with Fortune 500 companies such as SAP, Nvidia, Bosch and Siemens, and recently secured an agreement with Schaeffler for the large-scale deployment of thousands of humanoid robots in manufacturing environments. "By combining our decades of industrial expertise and manufacturing excellence with Humanoid's breakthrough physical AI platform, we are actively backing one of the most exciting frontiers in technology," said Klaus Rosenfeld, CEO of Schaeffler. Bosch CTO Mathias Pillin said that his company would "act as Humanoid's contract manufacturing partner while also providing strategic consulting and technical expertise in hardware design, production and supply chain". Meanwhile, Asian corporate giants have made significant moves around robotics in recent days. Samsung Electronics is establishing a new robotics division, while Hyundai Motor Group is acquiring full control of Boston Dynamics. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Humanoid raises $152M at $1.35B valuation to bring human-like robots into factories

London-based artificial intelligence and robotics firm SKL Robotics Ltd., doing business as Humanoid, today announced it raised $152 million in funding, bringing the company's post-money valuation to $1.35 billion. The round was led by Prime Movers Lab, a venture capital firm focused on scientific and bleeding-edge technology startups. Investors also participating in the funding included Schaeffler, Bosch, Fubon Financial Holding Venture Capital and Aglaé Ventures. "In just two years, we've gone from an idea to becoming Europe's first pure-play humanoid robotics unicorn, partnered with some of the world's leading industrial companies and built one of the strongest pipelines in the industry," said founder and Chief Executive Artem Sokolov. "What we've accomplished in such a short time would typically take a decade." Humanoid is best known for building industrial-grade humanoid robotics platforms, including wheeled and bipedal models, both part of the HMND-01 Alpha family. The wheeled version is designed primarily for industrial work where having a solid base benefits a robot, leaving it with a torso and arms that can interact with components, sort and move objects, and provide logistical support. The bipedal model adds legs, making it a walking robot, best for close quarters and situations where human-like movement is needed to adapt to limited access or changing environments. Since the company's founding in 2024, Humanoid has scored numerous high-profile partnerships with Fortune 500 companies, including SAP SE, Nvidia Corp., Robert Bosch GmbH and Siemens AG. In May, the company signed a massive binding commercial rollout with global manufacturing company Schaeffler AG to deploy between 1,000 and 2,000 wheeled humanoid units across facilities by 2032. "Bosch will act as Humanoid's contract manufacturing partner, while also providing strategic consulting and technical expertise in hardware design, production, and supply chain," said Bosch Chief Technology Officer Mathias Pillin. Under the hood, Humanoid developed what the company calls a "shared brain" for robotic operations called KinetIQ. The company describes this system as an intelligence framework that can orchestrate the execution of multiple interrelated tasks across multiple robots in industrial and service settings. It provides everything required for robots to communicate and hand off tasks while working toward a goal. This means that a company can deploy an entire fleet of robots across a product line, each with its own individual job, which can coordinate together to complete work. The humanoid robotics industry is experiencing a boom as big industries and startups continue to push towards a future where they will be present in factories and customer service. Elon Musk's Tesla Inc. is pushing toward deploying its Optimus humanoid robot into factories, Figure AI Inc. is actively testing its humanoids at a BMW Manufacturing plant in South Carolina, Agility Robotics Inc. is piloting its Digit robots with Amazon.com Inc. and GXO Logistics Inc., and Apptronik Inc. partnered with Mercedes-Benz to pilot its Apollo robot. Humanoid said it will use the new funding to build towards a future where intelligent robots work safely alongside people. The company intends to develop and launch its next-generation of humanoids, push toward long-term commercial deployments, start mass manufacturing its wheel-based robots and accelerate research and development of its AI and software frameworks toward general-purpose applications.

Robotics startup Humanoid raises $152 million Series A round at $1.35 billion valuation

Humanoid, a UK robotics firm, secured $152 million in Series A funding. This investment fuels the development of next-generation platforms and proprietary AI software. The company plans beta robot deployments at customer sites later this year. Humanoid has established partnerships with major technology and manufacturing companies. Bosch will serve as the contract-manufacturing partner for the new robots. UK-based robotics startup Humanoid said on Tuesday it raised $152 million in a Series A funding round at a post-money valuation of $1.35 billion, as investors pour money into companies developing robots that can augment human labor. The financing signals growing ⁠investor ⁠appetite for "physical AI" companies that combine artificial intelligence with robotics, as manufacturers and logistics companies increasingly look to humanoid robots to address labor shortages and automate repetitive industrial tasks. The round was led by Prime Movers Lab, with participation from Schaeffler, ⁠Bosch, Fubon Financial Holding Venture Capital and Aglae Ventures, bringing Humanoid's total funding to $270 million. The proceeds ⁠will fund development of next-generation platform, expansion of proprietary AI software platform KinetIQ, commercial deployments with industrial customers and the start of mass manufacturing of wheeled robots, Humanoid said. The company added that it plans to begin deploying beta robots at customer sites in the fourth quarter of this year across manufacturing, logistics, retail and other industrial sectors. Humanoid said it has partnerships ⁠with companies, including SAP, Nvidia, Bosch and Siemens, and recently signed an agreement for humanoid robots with Schaeffler, involving the planned deployment of thousands of robots at manufacturing facilities. Bosch said it would serve as Humanoid's contract-manufacturing partner while providing technical expertise in hardware design, production and supply chain operations.