# Startups, automakers, universities: who builds humanoids > 108 makers, nine kinds. Startups hold 37 of the 44 humanoids you can order. Automakers, universities, big tech, conglomerates and NASA hold 45 robots between them and sell none of them. Published: 2026-09-06 Section: Explainer Author: Geert Jan van Vlastuin, Editor, humanoid.observer Canonical: https://humanoid.observer/blog/startups-automakers-universities-who-builds-humanoids/ Licence: editorial text all rights reserved. The underlying data is CC BY 4.0 at https://humanoid.observer/data/. Cite as: humanoid.observer, https://humanoid.observer/blog/startups-automakers-universities-who-builds-humanoids/, accessed . --- Our database lists 108 makers behind 182 humanoid robots, sorted into nine types. Startups are 60 of the 108 and account for 116 robots and 37 of the 44 you can order. The other eight types, 48 makers, account for 66 robots and 7 orderable ones. Five of those types sell nothing at all. ## Nine kinds of maker, four of which sell anything Orderable means in stock or preorder, the homepage rule. The last column counts makers with at least one orderable machine. | Maker type | Makers | Robots | Orderable | Enterprise only | Retired or discontinued | Research | Makers that sell | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Startup | 60 | 116 | 37 | 36 | 23 | 2 | 22 | | University | 12 | 17 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 10 | 0 | | Big tech | 8 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | | Conglomerate | 7 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | | Research institute | 7 | 16 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 2 | | Automaker | 6 | 15 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 0 | | Ecosystem | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | | Supplier | 2 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | | Government | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | The selling column is short: startups, the two kit suppliers ([Hiwonder](/companies/hiwonder/) and [Robosen](/companies/robosen/)), two Chinese research institutes, and [Hugging Face](/companies/hugging-face/) with the $3,000 [HopeJR](/robots/hugging-face-hopejr/) on preorder. Everyone else, 34 makers with 45 robots, has no order form: 31 percent of the makers, 0 percent of the market. Two fields are thin. Headcount, `employees_est`, is empty for all 108 makers, and total funding is filled in once, [Figure AI](/companies/figure-ai/) at $1.75 billion. So this compares what makers build and sell, not how big they are. 20 makers have a stock ticker ([the listed makers](/blog/humanoid-robot-stocks-which-makers-are-listed/)); only 4 sell an orderable humanoid, all typed as startups: [UBTech](/companies/ubtech/), [Robotis](/companies/robotis/), [Rainbow Robotics](/companies/rainbow-robotics/), [Dobot](/companies/dobot/). The 16 listed automakers, conglomerates and big tech firms have nothing you can order. ## The startup wave peaked in 2023 59 of the 60 startups carry a founding year. 9 were founded before 2010, 8 between 2010 and 2014, 16 between 2015 and 2019, 3 in 2020 and 2021, then 23 from 2022 onward: 5 in 2022, 10 in 2023, 7 in 2024, 1 in 2025. The median founding year is 2018. 2023 is the biggest single year on the record. The 23 post-2022 startups are 12 Chinese, 8 American, and one each from Britain, Israel and Vietnam. They account for 41 robots, 19 of them orderable. The 36 older startups account for 74 robots, 18 orderable. The young companies put a higher share of what they build on sale. Ten of the 23 sell today, 8 Chinese ([AgiBot](/companies/agibot/), founded February 2023, is the largest with 6 robots) and 2 American, K-Scale Labs and Weave Robotics. Figure AI, the best funded, sells nothing. Startup is a loose word in our schema: an independent company whose main business is robots, whatever its age. [Kondo Kagaku](/companies/kondo/) dates from 1980, [Boston Dynamics](/companies/boston-dynamics/) from 1992, Robotis from 1999. Ownership is not the type either. Boston Dynamics has belonged to Hyundai since 2021, Rainbow Robotics became a Samsung subsidiary in December 2024, and [Pollen Robotics](/companies/pollen-robotics/) went to Hugging Face in April 2025. The type follows the maker, not the parent. Startups also carry the dead machines. 23 of their 116 robots are retired or discontinued: [Figure 01](/robots/figure-01/), the first [Digit](/robots/agility-digit/), the [hydraulic Atlas](/robots/boston-dynamics-atlas-hydraulic/), [Kepler K1](/robots/kepler-k1/), UBTech's first [Walker](/robots/ubtech-walker/). Five of the 60 companies are no longer what they were: [Aldebaran](/companies/aldebaran/) and Pollen acquired, [Anybots](/companies/anybots/) and [DataA](/companies/dataa-robotics/) dormant, [Schaft](/companies/schaft/) defunct. 32 startups have one robot on record. 14 have three or more. ## Automakers build for themselves Six automakers hold 15 robots. None is orderable. 8 are retired or discontinued, 2 are research, and [Chery Mornine](/robots/chery-mornine/) is enterprise only, with a reported $42,200 price from a marketplace listing. [Honda](/companies/honda/) ran the most influential corporate program of the 1990s and 2000s, from the E series through P2 and [ASIMO](/robots/asimo/), then ended ASIMO development in 2018. All four Honda machines are retired. [Toyota](/companies/toyota/) has three, retired or research; [T-HR3](/robots/toyota-t-hr3/) is teleoperated. [Tesla](/companies/tesla/) has four generations of Optimus: two retired, [Gen 2](/robots/tesla-optimus-gen-2/) in pilot with teleoperation marked yes, [V3](/robots/tesla-optimus-v3/) a prototype. [Xpeng](/companies/xpeng/)'s [Iron](/robots/xpeng-iron/) and [GAC](/companies/gac/)'s [GoMate](/robots/gac-gomate/) are prototypes. The deployments say the same thing. Of 52 on record, 4 belong to automakers: two Tesla sites, Xpeng internal, Honda internal. Every one is the maker using its own robot at its own factory, office or diner. No automaker has put a humanoid at a customer. A car company builds a humanoid like a concept car: for its own line, at a target cost, not a list price. [Tesla Optimus: what the record shows](/blog/tesla-optimus-what-the-record-shows/) has the detail. ## Universities, big tech and conglomerates: bodies without a shop Twelve universities hold 17 robots, 10 research and 7 retired. Nine of the twelve are American. Nothing is for sale, but two publish the number a startup will not: the bill of materials. Stanford's [ToddlerBot](/robots/toddlerbot/) is about $6,000 in parts, Berkeley's [Humanoid Lite](/robots/berkeley-humanoid-lite/) under $5,000. You build it yourself; the design is the product. Big tech is 8 makers and 4 robots. [Google DeepMind](/companies/google-deepmind/), [Nvidia](/companies/nvidia/), [OpenAI](/companies/openai/) and [Samsung](/companies/samsung/) have no body of their own on record; they supply models, chips, capital or ownership to companies that do. The 4 bodies: [Xiaomi CyberOne](/robots/xiaomi-cyberone/), research, cited at CNY 600,000 to 700,000 per unit, no product; [Naver AMBIDEX](/robots/naver-ambidex/), research; [Robbyant R1](/robots/robbyant-r1/) from Ant Group, prototype; Sony's [QRIO](/robots/sony-qrio/), cancelled in 2006. Conglomerates are 7 makers and 7 robots, and [Foxconn](/companies/foxconn/) has none. This type holds the two most famous endings in the record: Westinghouse's [Elektro](/robots/elektro/) from 1939 and SoftBank's [Pepper](/robots/softbank-pepper/), production paused in 2020, all three deployments on record ended. The live one is [Hexagon](/companies/hexagon/)'s [AEON](/robots/hexagon-aeon/), unveiled June 2025, in pilot, enterprise only, teleoperation partial. NASA, the one government maker, holds [Robonaut 2](/robots/nasa-robonaut-2/) (retired) and [Valkyrie](/robots/nasa-valkyrie/) (research). ## The research institutes that sell are Chinese Seven research institutes hold 16 robots, the only non-startup type with something in stock. The 3 orderable machines are [Tiangong 1.0](/robots/tiangong/) and [Tiangong 2.0](/robots/tiangong-2/) from [X-Humanoid](/companies/x-humanoid/), the Beijing municipal innovation center backed by UBTech, Xiaomi and Beijing E-Town, and [Qinglong](/robots/qinglong/) from the [Shanghai national center](/companies/humanoid-robots-shanghai/). Both platforms are open source. None has a public price, and all three are marked teleoperation partial. The Western institutes do not sell. [AIST](/companies/aist/) built five HRP machines with Kawada; four are retired and [HRP-5P](/robots/hrp-5p/) is research. [IIT](/companies/iit/)'s [iCub](/robots/iit-icub/) is enterprise only, built at cost for research partners, historically around EUR 250,000. DLR, Inria and IHMC hold research robots. A state-backed institute in China behaves like a startup with a public shareholder; one in Europe or Japan behaves like a university. ## The long tail: 17 countries, 45 makers, 8 orderable China and the United States hold 63 of the 108 makers and 36 of the 44 orderable machines; that split is in [China builds, America demos](/blog/china-builds-america-demos/). The other 17 countries hold 45 makers, 73 robots and 8 orderable machines. Of those 73 robots, 28 are retired or discontinued, 17 enterprise only and 13 research. | Country | Makers | Robots | Orderable | A maker to know | |---|---|---|---|---| | China | 30 | 65 | 31 | [Unitree](/companies/unitree/), [G1](/robots/unitree-g1/) at $13,500 | | United States | 33 | 44 | 5 | [1X](/companies/1x/), [NEO](/robots/1x-neo/) at $20,000 | | Japan | 12 | 24 | 2 | [Kondo Kagaku](/companies/kondo/), [KHR-3HV](/robots/kondo-khr-3hv/) kit at $1,500 | | France | 6 | 8 | 2 | [Pollen Robotics](/companies/pollen-robotics/), [Reachy 2](/robots/pollen-reachy-2/) at $70,000, [Reachy Mini](/robots/reachy-mini/) at $299 | | Germany | 5 | 7 | 0 | [Neura Robotics](/companies/neura-robotics/), [4NE-1](/robots/neura-4ne-1/), enterprise only | | South Korea | 5 | 9 | 3 | [Robotis](/companies/robotis/), [OP3](/robots/robotis-op3/) in stock | | Britain | 3 | 3 | 0 | [Engineered Arts](/companies/engineered-arts/), [Ameca](/robots/engineered-arts-ameca/), enterprise only | | Italy | 2 | 4 | 0 | [IIT](/companies/iit/), [iCub](/robots/iit-icub/) | | Russia | 2 | 2 | 0 | [Android Technics](/companies/android-technics/), [FEDOR](/robots/fedor-skybot-f-850/), retired | | Spain | 1 | 6 | 0 | [PAL Robotics](/companies/pal-robotics/), [REEM-C](/robots/pal-reem-c/) and [TALOS](/robots/pal-talos/), enterprise only | | Canada | 1 | 1 | 0 | [Sanctuary AI](/companies/sanctuary-ai/), [Phoenix](/robots/sanctuary-phoenix/), pilot | | Hong Kong | 1 | 2 | 0 | [Hanson Robotics](/companies/hanson-robotics/), [Sophia](/robots/sophia/), enterprise only | | India | 1 | 1 | 0 | [Addverb](/companies/addverb/), [Heal](/robots/addverb-heal/), concept | | Israel | 1 | 1 | 0 | [Mentee Robotics](/companies/mentee-robotics/), [Menteebot](/robots/mentee-menteebot/), pilot | | Poland | 1 | 2 | 1 | [Clone Robotics](/companies/clone-robotics/), [Clone Alpha](/robots/clone-alpha/), preorder, no price | | Sweden | 1 | 1 | 0 | [Hexagon](/companies/hexagon/), [AEON](/robots/hexagon-aeon/), pilot | | Taiwan | 1 | 0 | 0 | [Foxconn](/companies/foxconn/), no robot of its own on record | | Turkey | 1 | 1 | 0 | [Akinrobotics](/companies/akinrobotics/), [ADA GH5](/robots/akinrobotics-ada-gh5/), enterprise only | | Vietnam | 1 | 1 | 0 | [VinMotion](/companies/vinmotion/), founded January 2025, prototype | Japan is the long tail's biggest case and its clearest warning: 12 makers, 24 robots, 17 of them retired or discontinued. Its two orderable machines are a hobby kit from Kondo, founded 1980, and [Kawada](/companies/kawada/)'s [NEXTAGE](/robots/kawada-nextage/), a dual-arm industrial machine sold on quotation. Japan built the field's history and sells almost none of its present. Korea is the opposite: 5 makers, 3 orderable machines, from two listed companies, Robotis with [OP3](/robots/robotis-op3/) and the $539 [MINI](/robots/robotis-mini/), and Rainbow Robotics with [RB-Y1](/robots/rainbow-rb-y1/). Europe west of Russia holds 19 makers in 7 countries and puts 3 machines on sale, 2 of them Pollen's. Only 3 of the 26 startups outside China and the United States were founded in 2022 or later: Humanoid in Britain, Mentee in Israel, VinMotion in Vietnam. The wave is a two-country wave. ## What the maker type tells a buyer The type predicts three things before you open a spec sheet. Price basis. Of the 42 records in our buy file, 8 rest on an official published price: 6 startups, Hugging Face and Hiwonder. The other 30 startup records are reported prices (23), quotes (6) or an estimate (1), and 8 route through a sales contact. Kit suppliers go the other way: Robosen's [K1 Pro](/robots/robosen-k1-pro/) at $299 and Hiwonder's [TonyPi Pro](/robots/hiwonder-tonypi-pro/) at $789 sit in an official store, price on the page. An automaker or a big tech firm gives you a cost target, a CNY range, or nothing. Support. One buy record in 42 carries a warranty, [NEO](/robots/1x-neo/)'s three years on the Early Access purchase. The rest say nothing; the type does not help. A university publishes drawings and a parts list, more than most startups offer for a machine you own. Longevity. Corporate programs end by decision: Sony in 2006, Honda in 2018, SoftBank in 2020. Startups end by being bought or running out: 5 of 60 so far, and 23 of their 116 machines are already off the list. The safest bet on that measure is not a type but a habit. Kondo has sold kits since 2004, Robotis productised [DARwIn-OP](/robots/darwin-op/) and is on its third generation, [UBTech](/companies/ubtech/)'s [Alpha](/robots/ubtech-alpha/) line still sells at $499 while its first Walker is retired. The makers whose old products stayed for sale are the ones to buy from now. If you are choosing a supplier, buy from a startup or a kit maker with an official price on its own store; nobody else has one. If you are choosing what to wait for, note that the deepest pockets, the automakers and big tech, hold 19 robots and zero order forms, and their four deployments are all at home. ## Sources - [AgiBot](https://www.agibot.com), AgiBot - [Kondo Kagaku](https://kondo-robot.com), Kondo Kagaku - [Robotis e-Manual](https://emanual.robotis.com/), Robotis - [X-Humanoid](https://www.x-humanoid.com), X-Humanoid - [Hugging Face](https://huggingface.co/), Hugging Face - [Honda robot development history](https://global.honda/innovation/robotics/robot-development-history.html), Honda - [PAL Robotics](https://pal-robotics.com/), PAL Robotics - [Hexagon Robotics](https://hexagon.com/company/divisions/robotics), Hexagon