Humanoid

Humanoid is a robotics company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with additional offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Burnaby, British Columbia. Founded in 2024 by Artem Sokolov, the company develops general-purpose humanoid robots for industrial applications, with a stated longer-term ambition to enter service and household markets. Humanoid operates a proprietary AI framework called KinetIQ for fleet orchestration across wheeled and bipedal platforms. As of mid-2025, the company reported a headcount of approximately 160 people across its three locations. Initial funding of roughly $30 million came from the founder's personal capital; the company was preparing for a Series A round as of mid-2025. Humanoid has announced manufacturing and supply partnerships with Schaeffler and Bosch, and has conducted proof-of-concept trials with Siemens in industrial logistics. The company's first commercial robot deliveries are targeted for early 2027.

Humanoid's product line centers on the HMND 01 Alpha, offered in two configurations: a wheeled variant and a bipedal variant. Both share a common upper body with 29 active degrees of freedom, excluding end-effectors. The wheeled version, which appears to be the more mature platform, is designed for industrial material handling and logistics tasks within structured environments. It stands approximately 220 centimeters tall, can carry bimanual payloads of up to 15 kilograms, and offers vertical reach from floor level to two meters with shelf-depth access up to 60 centimeters. The robot can be fitted with either a 12-degree-of-freedom five-fingered hand or a simpler one-degree-of-freedom parallel gripper, depending on the task. Onboard perception is handled by 360-degree RGB cameras and dual depth sensors. The bipedal variant targets applications that require legged mobility, though publicly available detail on its operational readiness is limited. Both platforms run on Humanoid's KinetIQ AI framework for motion planning and task execution.

Humanoid's deployment relevance rests primarily on publicly announced industrial partnerships rather than independently verified operating data at production scale. The company's most significant disclosed relationship is with Schaeffler, the German automotive and industrial supplier. Announced in January 2026 and upgraded by May 2026 to a four-digit robot commitment, the agreement covers wheeled HMND 01 Alpha units deployed under a Robot-as-a-Service model. Phase one is scheduled to begin in December 2026 at two Schaeffler sites in Germany, focused on box-handling and production-line integration. Separately, Humanoid completed a two-week proof-of-concept trial at a Siemens Electronics Factory in early 2026, during which the wheeled robot achieved 60 tote moves per hour, sustained autonomous operation for more than 30 minutes, and maintained over 8 hours of uptime with pick-and-place success rates above 90 percent. Bosch was named as a manufacturing partner in May 2026. Despite these announced commitments, no customer-confirmed data on long-term fleet reliability, total cost of ownership, or sustained autonomous operation at production scale is publicly available. Deployment relevance remains contingent on successful execution of the Schaeffler phase-one milestones and evidence from additional end-user deployments.