UK Robotics Startup Humanoid Raises $152 Million, Becomes Europe's First Pure-Play Humanoid Robotics Unicorn

London‑based robotics company Humanoid has raised $152 million in a Series A funding round at a post‑money valuation of $1.35 billion, becoming what the company describes as Europe's first pure‑play humanoid robotics unicorn, as investor appetite for robots designed to augment human labor continues to accelerate.

The round was led by Prime Movers Lab, a venture firm known for backing breakthrough scientific startups and for its earlier investment in Figure AI, the humanoid robotics company now valued at $39 billion. Additional participation came from Schaeffler, Bosch, Fubon Financial Holding Venture Capital, and Aglaé Ventures, the investment vehicle of LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault. The new funding brings Humanoid's total capital raised to date to $270 million.

From Idea to Unicorn in Two Years

Humanoid was founded in London in May 2024 by Artem Sokolov, who reportedly invested $30 million of his own capital to get the company off the ground. Sokolov sold his family's manufacturing business, which he had grown to $1 billion in annual revenue over more than a decade, in August 2025. He has said his motivation for founding Humanoid was rooted in his grandparents' experiences with repetitive factory labor, and a desire to build robots capable of taking on that kind of work.

"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," Sokolov said. He added that the new funding gives the company resources to move faster and turn humanoid robots from a breakthrough technology into an everyday industrial tool.

Wheeled Robots First, Bipedal Robots Alongside

Unlike several of its US and Chinese competitors, which have focused primarily on fully bipedal humanoid robots, Humanoid's initial commercial product is a wheeled robot, built on what the company calls its HMND 01 platform. The company says it built its wheeled alpha version in seven months and its bipedal version in five months, both faster than typical industry timelines, running on its proprietary AI system called KinetIQ.

The company says it has secured 34,000 robot pre‑orders worth a combined $2.4 billion, a substantial order pipeline for a company that has not yet shipped commercial units at scale. Humanoid currently employs between 51 and 200 people across offices in London, Boston and Vancouver.

Industrial Partnerships Driving Commercial Deployment

Humanoid has built partnerships with a number of Fortune 500 companies, including SAP, Nvidia, Bosch and Siemens. The company recently reached an agreement with Schaeffler for the large‑scale deployment of thousands of humanoid robots across manufacturing environments, one of the more concrete commercial commitments announced so far in the sector.

Klaus Rosenfeld, chief executive of Schaeffler, said the company's decades of industrial expertise and manufacturing excellence combined with Humanoid's physical AI platform represented a bet on one of the most exciting frontiers in technology.

The new capital will fund Humanoid's next phase of growth, accelerate commercial deployments and business expansion, and support further development of both its wheeled robots and its underlying KinetIQ AI platform.

A Fast‑Moving, Highly Capitalized Category

Humanoid's valuation jump reflects how quickly capital has flowed into the broader humanoid robotics category over the past two years. Prime Movers Lab's earlier bet on Figure AI, whose valuation now sits at $39 billion, shows how far ahead the category leader has already moved relative to actual commercial revenue, and highlights how much of current humanoid robotics pricing is running ahead of proven, at‑scale deployment.

Still, with a rapidly growing pre‑order book, partnerships with established industrial manufacturers, and now unicorn status less than two years after founding, Humanoid has positioned itself as one of the most closely watched robotics companies to come out of Europe, with its ability to convert pre‑orders into deployed, revenue‑generating robots likely to determine whether its valuation holds up over the next funding cycle.