K-Scale Labs
K-Scale Labs is an open-source humanoid company founded in 2024 that publishes the hardware and software of its K-Bot and Z-Bot robots and sells them to developers.
- Type
- startup
- Headquarters
- Palo Alto, California, United States
- Founded
- 2024
- Founders
- Benjamin Bolte
- Status
- defunct
- Employees (est.)
- n/d
- Disclosed funding
- n/d
- Valuation
- n/d
- Listed
- private
- Website
- kscale.dev
What the record says.
K-Scale Labs was a Palo Alto startup founded in 2024 by Benjamin Bolte, who had worked on robotics at Tesla and Meta Reality Labs. It went through Y Combinator's summer 2024 batch and set out to build US-made humanoids with openly published hardware and software. Sam Altman was reported to have pre-ordered a robot and, via a nonprofit he co-founded, given USD 250,000 to the open-source work.
Two robots came out of it. The Zeroth Bot, or Z-Bot, a roughly 1.5 foot hobbyist humanoid, was launched on Kickstarter in early 2025 at about USD 999. K-Bot, unveiled in July 2025, was a 1.4 m, 34 kg biped priced at USD 8,999 for the first 100 units, with shipping promised for late 2025. A Founder's Edition batch began shipping and a second batch sold out.
On 4 November 2025 Bolte told customers the company was ceasing operations, cancelling K-Bot orders, refunding deposits and laying off most staff. He said about USD 400,000 remained, no lead investor could be found for the Series A he had been told 100 pre-orders would unlock, and a sale to 1X and Bot Co. had been explored. All hardware was released under CERN-OHL-S-2.0 and software under MIT. The number of K-Bots delivered was never published.
2 humanoids tracked.
K-Bot
K-Bot is the open-source full-size humanoid from K-Scale Labs, a Palo Alto startup founded in 2024 by Benjamin Bolte. It is sold as a developer platform with published hardware and software and is intended to seed an open humanoid ecosystem.
Z-Bot
Z-Bot is K-Scale Labs' small, low-cost open-source humanoid, sold from 2025 as a developer and education kit for about USD 999.
Rounds and valuations.
| Date | Round | Amount | Valuation | Lead | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | seed | n/a | n/d | Y Combinator | Palo Alto open-source humanoid company (K-Bot, Z-Bot); Y Combinator W24 batch; seed size to be verified. |
* 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.
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.
Sources
- 01K-Scale LabsK-Scale Labs
- 02
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