Pollen Robotics
Pollen Robotics of Bordeaux makes the open-source Reachy humanoid platforms and was acquired by Hugging Face in April 2025, after which the two launched the Reachy Mini desktop robot.
- Type
- startup
- Headquarters
- Bordeaux, France, France
- Founded
- 2016
- Founders
- Matthieu Lapeyre, Pierre Rouanet
- Status
- acquired
- Employees (est.)
- n/d
- Disclosed funding
- n/d
- Valuation
- n/d
- Listed
- private
- Website
- pollen-robotics.com
What the record says.
Pollen Robotics was founded in Bordeaux in 2016 by Matthieu Lapeyre and Pierre Rouanet, two roboticists from the French research institute Inria. Its Reachy platform, a humanoid torso with two arms, a camera head and later a wheeled base and VR teleoperation, was sold to research and teaching labs; the current Reachy 2 lists at 70,000 US dollars and users named by the company include Cornell and Carnegie Mellon. Pollen came second in the ANA Avatar XPRIZE in 2022 and said at the time of its sale that it had shipped hundreds of units to more than 20 countries.
On 14 April 2025 Hugging Face, the AI model platform, bought the company for an undisclosed sum, folding it into its LeRobot open-source robotics effort led by Remi Cadene. The stated plan was to publish Reachy's designs, 3D files and software and to sell cheap, open hardware alongside them.
The first result was Reachy Mini, a desktop expressive robot from 299 US dollars programmable in Python, JavaScript and Scratch, which the company site now says has passed 10,000 units shipped. A 399 US dollar 25 cm biped called Microduck was on pre-order as of September 2026. Employee numbers and revenue have not been disclosed, and the humanoid line remains a research product.
2 humanoids tracked.
Reachy 2
Reachy 2 is an open-source humanoid with two arms, an expressive head and a mobile base from Pollen Robotics of Bordeaux, designed for VR teleoperation and AI research. Hugging Face acquired Pollen in April 2025 and sells Reachy 2 alongside its LeRobot software.
Reachy Mini
Reachy Mini is a desktop-size expressive robot head and torso from Pollen Robotics, now part of Hugging Face. It is not a walking humanoid, it is the cheapest legitimate way to start building with the open embodied-AI stack that runs on its full-size sibling Reachy 2.
Europe's humanoids: who builds them and what you can order
31 of the 182 humanoids on record come from seven European countries. Three can be ordered, two have a price, and the dearest of those is $75,000 for a robot that does not walk.
How long does a humanoid robot actually run
22 of 182 humanoids on record quote a runtime. The claims run from 1 to 8 hours with a median of 4, and of the 44 machines you can order, 4 say anything at all.
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.
44 you can order, 138 you cannot: the gap explained
We keep a record of 182 humanoid robots. Fewer than a quarter of them will sell you one, and of those, only eight tell you the price on their own website. Here is where the rest went.
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
- 01Pollen RoboticsPollen Robotics
- 02
- 03