Sanctuary AI
Sanctuary AI of Vancouver develops the Phoenix general-purpose humanoid and its Carbon control software, with a focus on hydraulic dexterous hands and teleoperation-based training. Magna is a partner and investor. The company changed leadership in 2025.
- Type
- startup
- Headquarters
- Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
- Founded
- 2018
- Founders
- Geordie Rose, Suzanne Gildert, Olivia Norton, Ajay Agrawal
- Status
- active
- Employees (est.)
- n/d
- Disclosed funding
- n/d
- Valuation
- n/d
- Listed
- private
- Website
- sanctuary.ai
What the record says.
Sanctuary AI was founded in Vancouver in 2018 by Geordie Rose, Suzanne Gildert, Olivia Norton and Ajay Agrawal. Its pitch was a control system called Carbon, teleoperation to gather training data, and hydraulic hands. Investors have included Magna International, Accenture, Bell, Verizon Ventures, Export Development Canada and BDC, plus a 30 million Canadian dollar contribution from the federal Strategic Innovation Fund in November 2022; total funding was put at 140 million dollars by mid-2024.
The Phoenix humanoid reached its seventh generation in April 2024, when Magna also signed a partnership; the site now shows an eighth. Real-world use has been limited to pilots, the best documented being a one-week trial at a Mark's clothing store in British Columbia in which the robot performed 110 retail tasks, and wire-assembly work with unnamed automotive suppliers at which the company claims a 99.5 percent success rate.
Rose left in November 2024 amid reports he was pushed out, about 30 staff were laid off, and James Wells served as interim CEO. Zeon of Japan invested an undisclosed sum in May 2026, and on 26 June 2026 board chair Daniel Friedmann, formerly of MDA, became CEO. The company now describes its product as hardware-agnostic physical AI for existing robots, not the Phoenix humanoid itself.
1 humanoid tracked.
Rounds and valuations.
| Date | Round | Amount | Valuation | Lead | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 2024 | strategic | n/a | n/d | Accenture Ventures | Undisclosed strategic investment by Accenture Ventures; Microsoft announced a separate technology collaboration (no equity disclosed) in April 2024. Sanctuary cut staff and changed leadership in 2025. |
| Nov 2023 | grant | $22M | n/d | Government of Canada (Strategic Innovation Fund) | CAD 30 million contribution from the Strategic Innovation Fund to develop Phoenix general-purpose robots (about USD 22 million). |
| Mar 2022 | Series A | $59M | n/d | Bell, Evok Innovations, Export Development Canada | CAD 75.5 million round (about USD 58.5 million at the time). Magna later became a manufacturing and deployment partner. |
* reported, not confirmed by the company.
At customer sites.
Milestones.
Magna to deploy Sanctuary AI's Phoenix in a car parts plant
Sanctuary AI announces an agreement with Magna International, which had invested in the company, to deploy Phoenix robots at a Magna manufacturing facility. Sanctuary later scales back and shifts toward supplying hands and teleoperation technology.
Sanctuary AI unveils Phoenix
Canadian company Sanctuary AI reveals Phoenix, its sixth generation general purpose robot with 20 degree of freedom hands, controlled by the Carbon AI system and largely teleoperated for training. Time magazine names it an invention of the year.
How a humanoid robot works: actuators, compute, sensors and the model
Of 182 humanoids on record, 178 say what moves the joints and 43 say what computer is inside. The further a layer sits from the metal, the less the maker tells you about it.
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.
Who is paying for humanoids: 69 funding rounds
Our funding record holds 69 entries. Take out the government funds, the acquisitions and the IPOs and $6.33 billion of disclosed private money remains. 37 percent of it went to companies with no robot on record.
Where humanoids actually work: 52 deployments, counted
We track 52 humanoid deployments at named sites. Eighteen are in car plants, exactly half are live, and six say how many robots turned up. Those six add up to 41 machines.
Why hands are the hardest part of a humanoid
Of 182 humanoids on record, 96 describe their hands and 13 publish a degrees-of-freedom figure for them. The word dexterous appears 21 times and comes with a number once.
Sources
- 01Sanctuary AISanctuary AI
- 02Sanctuary AIWikipedia
- 03
- 04