Artem Sokolov

Artem Sokolov founded Humanoid in London in 2024 to build humanoid robots for industrial work. The company designs both the hardware and the AI that runs it, a four-layer framework it calls KinetIQ, and its first product line is a wheeled humanoid aimed at logistics, manufacturing and retail. It has offices in London, Boston and Vancouver and more than 250 engineers, researchers and other staff.

From proof of concept to contract

After proofs of concept and a strategic partnership announced in January 2026, Humanoid signed a binding, phased deployment and supply agreement with Schaeffler, the German motion technology group, in May. The first phase runs from December 2026 to June 2027 at two Schaeffler sites in Germany: box handling in a live production environment at Herzogenaurach, and capability testing followed by on-site validation at Schweinfurt. The agreement targets a four-digit number of wheeled robots across Schaeffler’s global facilities by 2032.

Humanoid supplies the robots as a service, including fleet management software, maintenance, 24/7 support and updates. Under a separate five-year agreement, Schaeffler becomes its preferred supplier of joint actuators, covering more than half its demand for the wheeled platform through 2031. Bosch, through Robert Bosch Robotics, is its contract manufacturing partner, and it counts SAP, NVIDIA and Siemens among its other partners.

Europe’s first humanoid unicorn

On 21 July Humanoid announced a $152m (£113m) Series A at a $1.35bn (£1bn) post-money valuation, led by Prime Movers Lab with Schaeffler, Bosch, Fubon Financial Holding Venture Capital and Aglaé Ventures. The company says it is Europe’s first pure-play humanoid robotics unicorn. The round takes its total funding to $270m and will pay for its next-generation robot, the start of mass manufacturing of wheeled humanoids and the rollout of beta robots to customer sites from Q4 2026.

Sokolov said the funding “gives us the resources to move even faster and to turn humanoid robots from breakthrough technology into everyday industrial tools”.

Why it matters to UK buyers

Humanoid pitches its wheeled robots at the labor shortages facing manufacturers, warehouse operators and retailers. A robot sold as a service, with maintenance and support included, lowers the upfront cost of trying one and puts the integration burden on the supplier. Schaeffler’s rollout rules on safety, IT architecture and security by design also give UK buyers a template for what an enterprise deployment demands. Systems integrators and automation partners are likely to be part of any wider rollout.

In two years Sokolov has taken Humanoid from founding to a unicorn valuation and what the company describes as one of the largest disclosed humanoid deployment agreements. The Schaeffler sites from December will be the first proof of whether the robots earn their place on a production line.