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.

That means 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 to 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 for general-purpose applications.

Image: SKL Robotics