Why a SPAC for Agility makes sense
And who is backing U.S. killer robots?
Humanoid Hype
It had to happen. The Trump family is involved in a humanoid robot company which is now selling robot warfighters to the U.S. army.
Two humanoid robots nicknamed âPhantom MK-1â were deployed to Ukraine, which has been in a state of war since last February. Standing 180 cm tall and weighing 80 kg, these black-bodied robots with robust builds evoke comparisons to Batman. They were tasked with transporting supplies to high-risk war zones. The Phantom MK-1 is a military-grade humanoid developed by the U.S. startup âFoundation Future Industries.â Specializing in combat-ready humanoids, the company collaborates with the U.S. Department of Defense. Eric Trump, son of U.S. President Donald Trump, has also joined as chief strategy advisor.
Foundation Future Industries was established in San Francisco, U.S. in 2024. With the mission to create âautonomous machines that can do what humanity desires,â the company is developing industrial and military humanoids. Its flagship products include the humanoid âPhantomâ and the artificial intelligence (AI) system âCortexâ that powers it. Read more here
Foundation Future Industries is the latest startup from Sankaet Pathak, founder/CEO of failed fintech startup Synapse which filed for bankruptcy in 2024 with tens of millions of dollars in consumer deposits unaccounted for. According to The Information, Pathak was attempting to raise $100M at a $1Billion valuation in 2025. Now heâs shipping humanoids to the Ukraine and testing humanoids firing mortars with the U.S. Dept of Warfare.
Hard Working Humanoids
Meanwhile on the other side of the hype cycle, Agility Robotics is going public in a SPAC with Churchill Capital at a proposed valuation of $2.5Billion. This is a significantly different moment than the frothy peak SPAC era of 2020 and 2021 when dozens of self-driving technology companies went public in reverse mergers. That bubble burst in 2022 when rising interest rates, changing investor sentiment and regulatory scrutiny caused public valuations of these companies to plummet.
In general, going public via an IPO is only a practical option for a company with trailing annual revenue of $100M-$200M, which rules out that pathway for earlier stage companies. Chinaâs Ubtech was able to IPO in late 2023 on the strength of a whole range of commercial offerings. Ubtech, which was founded in 2012, raised approx $1Billion in their Hong Kong stock exchange listing allowing them to fund the expansion of their robotics production towards industrial humanoid robots.
Agility Robotics has successful commercial deployments at GXO, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, Schaeffler and Mercado Libre, with more than 65,000 hours of safe and reliable operation in production environments. However Agility still required significant capital to fund the production of their next generation collaborative robots.
The Company is now preparing for the commercial launch of Digit v5, its next-generation humanoid robot designed to be the worldâs first cooperatively safe humanoid. Agility has already secured more than $300 million of multi-year orders for Digit v5, subject to the realization of certain contractual milestones, with a growing pipeline of over 30 customers, reflecting growing demand from enterprises preparing to deploy humanoid robots at scale. Read more here
Agility selected the SPAC route as a fast route to public markets who are eager for access to standalone humanoid robotics companies, as well as for the $420M cash injection. The additional $200M PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity) at $10/share includes significant investment from Foxconn. Other major Agility investors include NVIDIA, Amazon, and Softbank. Itâs a smart move for one of the first movers in the U.S. humanoid landscape and shows significant traction.
The public listing is not going to be completed until Q4 but early indications are good. Churchill stock is up from $10 to $13.86 (on Friday close). Hopefully itâs not a SpaceX situation, but then, the humanoid bar is set a lot lower.
SNF Nostos: Humanoids, Hype or reality?
Meanwhile in Athens, Iâve had the privilege of attending and speaking at the incredible 30th SNF Nostos celebration of philanthropy and democracy. Minas Liarokapis from Acumino and the Humanoid Olympiad curated a session on âPhysical AI & Humanoids: Hype vs Realityâ with Hon Weng Chong, David Cleaves, myself and Daniela Rus.
For this audience I focused on âThe Five Laws of Roboticsâ, a workable framework for the intersection of robots and humanity, informed by the EPSRC Principles of Robotics.
Rodney Brooks spoke in the next session and was suitably sceptical about the role of hype in the current wave of humanoid companies. When he was CEO of Rethink Robotics, Brooks shipped the first commercially deployed humanoid, Baxter. He says the real point of difference between a pilot and a commercial deployment isnât the contract, itâs whether or not you get woken at 3am to go fix your robots.
Since Rethink Robotics, Brooks has pivoted to a less humanoid form factor with the collaborative robot carts from Robust.ai.
Silicon Valley Robotics Investor/Startup Database
Are you a startup fundraising atm? Fill out our âFor Investors Eyes Onlyâ sheet.
These investors write checks anywhere from angel and seed stage to $5-50 million.
Feedback from the startups - high quality inbound interest from investors.
Feedback from the investors - incredible depth and range of robotics startups.
If youâre an accredited investor and havenât already signed up for the spreadsheet - Sign up here for great robotics deal flow!
Robotics News
Antoniq Robotics from Portugal is out of stealth, building embodied AI for agriculture.
European robotics start-ups go up against Chinese heavyweights - Yahoo
Morgan Stanley doubles China humanoid robot shipment forecast as commercialization accelerates - CNBC
South Koreaâs growing role in humanoid robot development - Goldman Sachs
2,000 combat robots ordered for Ukraine in Germany deal - Defence Blog
Ukraine is putting weapons stations on ground robots to make âsmall tanksâ that hunt Russiaâs infiltration teams - Business Insider
Nvidia seeks to make humanoid AI robots safer around humans - Los Angeles Times
Nvidia Is Tackling a Hidden Problem in Humanoid Robots â And Solving It Could Make the Technology Widespread - Entrepreneur
Genesis AI grows to 60 employees, ramps up hiring in Silicon Valley - Silicon Valley Business Journal
General Intuition raises $320M to use video game data to train robots - The Robot Report
Bear Robotics to Acquire Kinisi Robotics, Completing Its End-to-End Physical AI Robotics Platform - ACN Newswire
Robotaxis drive miles just to get cleaned and charged; this new startup wants to fix that - TechCrunch
Amid Amazonâs Robot Surge, Proteus Charts a New Path Forward - CNET
Flippy maker Miso Robotics buys Zume IP to launch pizza automation - QSR Web
How close are we to having robot butlers - Financial Review
Can this $125,000 robot be my friend - MSN
âDigitâ maker Agility Robotics to go public in $2.5B deal â hereâs what the filings say about its finances - GeekWire
Tech entrepreneurs seeking the next AI frontier are pivoting from chatbots to âworld modelsâ - KRON4
Robots will replace 700,000 workers - Yahoo Finance
Robots will replace 700,000 delivery workers âsooner or laterâ, warns JD.com boss - Financial Times
Hyundai workers in South Korea vote to strike over fears of robots replacing them - Financial Times
âWho is going to pay us when weâre replaced by robots?â The Indian factory workers told to film themselves for AI - The Guardian
Robotics Events
Want to host an event or reach the robotics community?
Many companies are reaching out to Silicon Valley Robotics about hosting events, outreach or hiring and we have a great community network, of people looking for work, of investors interested in deal flow and of technologists interested in learning about the latest advances.
Would you be interested in hosting the next Bots, Bevs and Devs? Or something customized specifically for your goals? Reach out here!
More Robotics Events:
Robot Fringe Festival - London - July 2
Bots, Bevs & Devs - Santa Clara - July 8
Robotics: Science and Systems - Sydney, Australia - July 13 - July 16
Open Sauce - San Francisco - July 17 - July 19
Bots, Bevs & Devs - San Francisco - Aug 35Actuate - San Francisco - Aug 18 - Aug 19
Bots, Bevs & Devs - tbd - Sep 2
SVR Investor Summit and Manufacturing Workshop - tbd - tbd
ROSCon Global - Toronto - Sep 22 - Sep 24
IROS 2026 - Pittsburgh - Sep 27 - Oct 1
Bots, Bevs & Devs - tbd - Oct 7
Bots, Bevs & Devs - tbd - Nov4
Bots, Bevs & Devs - tbd - Dec 2
IEEE Humanoids 2026 - Silicon Valley - Dec 6-9
The annual IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots is the internationally recognized prime event of the humanoid robotics community. The conference is sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and coordinated by the Technical Committee on Humanoids.
Send me your 2026 progress, plans or posts for potential inclusion in Robots&Startups. Or join the organizing team at Silicon Valley Robotics - bots&beer@svrobo.org
The key test for public markets will be whether humanoids can prove uptime, safety, service economics, customer expansion, and payback, while the military-humanoid narrative should be treated more cautiously as defence experimentation rather than evidence that ârobot warfightersâ have arrived.