Hugging Face
Hugging Face, the AI model hub, entered robotics with the LeRobot open-source library in 2024, acquired Pollen Robotics in April 2025 and announced the low-cost HopeJR humanoid and Reachy Mini in 2025.
- Type
- ecosystem
- Headquarters
- New York, New York (Paris office), United States
- Founded
- 2016
- Founders
- Clement Delangue, Julien Chaumond, Thomas Wolf
- Status
- active
- Employees (est.)
- 250
- Disclosed funding
- n/d
- Valuation
- $4.5B (Aug 2023)
- Listed
- private
- Website
- huggingface.co
What the record says.
Hugging Face is the New York company that runs the main public hub for open machine-learning models. It was founded in 2016 by three French entrepreneurs, Clement Delangue, Julien Chaumond and Thomas Wolf. Its Series D in August 2023 raised USD 235 million from Salesforce, Google, Nvidia and others at a USD 4.5 billion valuation; Wikipedia gives about 250 employees and USD 150 million revenue for 2025.
Robotics started in 2024 with LeRobot, an open-source library led by former Tesla Optimus scientist Remi Cadene. On 14 April 2025 Hugging Face bought Pollen Robotics of Bordeaux, founded in 2016 by Inria alumni Matthieu Lapeyre and Pierre Rouanet, maker of the USD 70,000 open-source Reachy 2, of which hundreds had gone to labs in more than 20 countries.
On 29 May 2025 it announced two cheap open-source machines: HopeJR, a full-size humanoid with 66 actuated degrees of freedom built with The Robot Studio at a target price near USD 3,000, and the Reachy Mini desktop robot, later priced at USD 299 to 499. Delangue said first units would ship by the end of 2025. HopeJR is a kit for hobbyists and researchers, not a working labour robot, and Hugging Face has published no sales figures for it.
1 humanoid tracked.
Rounds and valuations.
| Date | Round | Amount | Valuation | Lead | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Apr 2025 | acquisition | n/a | n/d | Hugging Face | Hugging Face acquired Pollen Robotics (Reachy 2 open-source humanoid upper body); terms not disclosed. Basis of the LeRobot hardware line. |
* reported, not confirmed by the company.
Open-source humanoids: what you can actually build
24 of the 182 humanoids on record call themselves open source. 15 publish hardware files and software, 3 name a licence, 12 can be ordered, and none of the four on preorder has any autonomy evidence yet.
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.
China builds, America demos: what 108 makers tell you
Chinese makers account for 65 of the 182 humanoids in our record and 31 of the 44 you can order. American makers hold the money, the research and most of the autonomy claims, and sell you almost nothing.
How much does a humanoid robot cost in 2026?
Thirty-five humanoids in our record carry a price, from $299 to $250,000 with a median of $15,000. What the money buys changes completely at each band, and so does how much you should trust the number.
Sources
- 01Hugging FaceHugging Face
- 02Hugging FaceWikipedia
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